Tale Of Hero and Heroin To Debut in Berlin
Lawrie Zion, Film writer
22 December 2005


"I'm thrilled to bits," was director Neil Armfield's reaction when he heard that his film Candy had been selected for the Berlin Film Festival, one of the world's most prestigious screen events.

The Australian film stars Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish as a couple in a drug-addled romance.

It was Ledger's first role after his praised performance as a gay ranch hand in Brokeback Mountain, a hot favourite for Best Picture at next year's Oscars.

"I think he was a bit shell-shocked by it," Armfield said of Ledger's reaction to working on Brokeback Mountain.

"He's just deepened so incredibly over the last couple of years as an actor and he has utterly come into his own, and realised his own strengths."

Armfield described Cornish, who starred in Somersault, and Ledger as "a beautiful fit" from a casting perspective. Best known for his achievements as a stage director, Armfield has worked behind the camera before.

But he said Candy, which is based on the novel by Luke Davies, was his first "real" feature film.

Armfield described it as a kind of love triangle. "There's a hero, a heroine, and then there's heroin," he said.

The heroin represented "the very human desire to make things better and the human experience sharper and richer and deeper. Their tragedy is that they don't see until it is too late that it cannibalises the very thing that is so special and that they are trying to eternalise in a way."

Candy, which is due to be released in Australian cinemas in May, also stars Geoffrey Rush as a wealthy gay man who gets to know the central couple.

Australia will also be represented in Berlin by Opal Dream, a family drama about a girl whose imaginary friends threaten her family in the Outback. The Australian-British co-production, starring Vince Colosimo and Jacqueline McKenzie, will open the Kinderfilmfest, the festival's children's and youth competition. Opal Dream is due for release in Australia in the second half of next year.

The Berlin Film Festival opens on February 9, by which time the Oscar nominations will have been announced. While Ledger is the Australian most likely to receive an acting nod, Russell Crowe (Cinderella Man) and Eric Bana are also contenders.

Bana stars in Steven Spielberg's historical thriller Munich, in which he plays an Israeli agent trying to track down the terrorists who killed his compatriots during the 1972 Olympic Games.

Munich and Brokeback Mountain open in Australia on January 26.