AUSTRALIA’S film industry calls him a living national treasure, Paul Cox is happy to call himself living.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
The prolific director’s latest film, Force of Destiny, opened The Border Mail International Film Festival on Wednesday night, and Cox was in Albury with his partner Rosie Raka and the film’s producer Mark Patterson to launch the festival.
Force of Destiny follows Robert (David Wenham) and his emotional struggle of being diagnosed with liver cancer and falling in love.
"I've been fortunate enough to experience a degree of death and so I have to turn it into life and something that can help other people to survive," says Cox, who had a liver transplant in 2009, he met fellow transplant recipient Raka at the time.
"When you stand on the very edge of the void you look at life in a totally different way and you realise that we're all absolutely insane, we live in an insane world that has the wrong priorities.
"I've made more films than, I think, anybody else in the country … making films that somehow treat the human condition in some depth.
"There's a lot of people screaming for a bit of humanity on the screen.
"You can't watch all this crap that you get continuously fed, it's the same nonsense all over the world.
"Film is an extraordinary medium that could enrich our lives much more, it's very misused and abused."
He wants people stop and take stock of how they live.
"We all have a heart. Your blood is as red as mine so we all have the capacity to feel, to think and to remember, so why can't we talk more about who we are and what we are on film?
"Film is the very medium to become more in tune with the world we live in because we live in very dark times.
“We keep making Wolf Creek 1, 2, 3 and 4: well I don't need it."
Hollywood’s blood and guts and shoot to thrill stereotype riles Cox.
"We're not talking about the export of hamburgers or chicken wings, we're talking about the export of something that affects people's brains, people's futures, people's dreams, the dreams of our children,” he says.
"How can that be in the hands of a second-rate culture that only has dollar signs flashing everywhere?
"Their real god is the dollar and nothing else.
"So this wonderful medium is in their hands and we imitate this all over the world.
"It is extraordinary that wherever you are this is being copied. We do the same here in Australia – Wolf Creek 25.
"You'll find a film like Force Of Destiny will also make plenty of dollars so why can't we think a bit more and do both?"
