Justin Kurzel

Despite his interest in traumatized and emotionally damaged characters and dark, almost evil themes, his own favorite films are comedies.

[press conference for Nitram (2021) at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival] I live in Tasmania - I have for the last four years - it's the most beautiful place in the world, it's why we moved there, to bring up our children, and I met my wife, Essie, who plays Helen in the film, the year the Port Arthur shootings happened in 1996. So I'm extremely aware. When Shaun [Shaun Grant] sent me the script, I took a very, very, very deep breath. But I saw something in the script and in the way he was trying to tell it and what he was trying to say that I found incredibly moving and compelling and quite shocking in regards to the step-by-step dismantling of this character. But also this moment in the film where it sort of crystallises - for me what the film is about - when this man walks into a gun store, at probably their most dangerous, and is able to buy an absurd amount of weapons without a licence. There was something about this scene; for the first time I really felt the importance of what gun reform is. It was something that I walked into very gently and we still are. It's a very, very deep wound in Tasmania and also Australia and we feel it every day as we walk with this film.