Green Bush

The story of one night at a radio station situated in Australian bush, this was, in my opinion, by far the best film of the short film programs of the Berlin Film Festival '05.

Wonderfully subtle and shot beautifully, it renders the Australian bush with a unique sense of PLACE and SPACE I had not seen before or since. The radio station the film gravitates around and it's different inhabitants rang of being a real place with a unique prehistory, latent conflicts and gallery of true, living characters - a feat not easily achieved within the confines of a short film.

It's not known to me whether this was an effect intended by the director, but the film was also infused with an odd sense of mystery, of the great dark unknown surrounding you, throughout. It's the feeling typical of experiences in the wild or in nature, where the scale of the world we don't control surrounding our small human beacons becomes apparent.

Green Bush left me with a sense of truly having been there that night in the bush: as an observer of a period, a situation and a mood. Which in the end is an effect most short film makers would sell their mothers screenplay for.