EXILE

1994 / 93 min / 35mm / Drama

 

Director:  Paul Cox

Script:  Paul Cox, based on the novel “Priest Island” – E.L. Grant Watson

Camera:  Nino Martinetti

Sound:  James Currie, Craig Carter

Production Designer:  Neil Angwin

Editor:  Paul Cox

Music:  Paul Grabowsky

Executive Producer:  William T. Marshall

Producers:  Paul Ammitzboll, Paul Cox, Santhana K Naidu

Cast:  Aden Young, Beth Champion, Claudia Karvan, Norman Kaye,

Chris Haywood, Daivid Field, Barry Otto, Hugo Weaving

EXILE Awards

1994: AFI Award - Won - Best Achievement in Cinematography - Nino Gaetano Martinetti ; AFI Award - Nominated - Best Original Music Score- Paul Grabowsky; Berlin International Film Festival -Nominated- Golden Berlin Bear - Paul Cox 

 

"In the  name  of the  law  and  your  fellow  men,  I declare you,  Peter Costello, to be outlaw, and  decree  that if ever you should return  to the mainland, any man meeting you shall ha ve power, and hold it his duty, to work your death, seeing that your life is forf eit. Here on this island you shall stay..."

 

 

In 1860 this sentence was passed on to a young man whose only crime was the theft of a few sheep. As time passes he lives and survives on this island, fighting the demons of his past and the ghosts of his present.

 

A girl from the mainland, Mary, learns of Peter's isolated existence. Compelled by her own loneliness and her romantic dreams about  ‘the outlaw’, she decides to go to him, to join him on the island. Within their isolation a unique love blossoms. The intensity of their passion mirrors the sea, the land and the sky.  Their spirits soar.

 

News of Mary's harmonious life with Peter causes great unrest and distress amongst the God-fearing citizens of the mainland. Subsequent news of the imminent birth of a child incites the settlement to demand that the relationship be sanctioned by marriage and baptism, but Peter has other plans.