How Not to Make Movies

I have just finished a new film, The Travellers (2025/26), all shot in Western Australia, my first since Ladies in Black in 2017. After Ladies in Black I had a couple of film projects in America that didn’t go ahead because Covid hit and prevented me travelling from Australia. Covid turned out to have a couple of advantages.

Being locked in the house meant I was forced to spend my time—apart from lazing around and watching old movies—writing film scripts, or an occasional magazine article. It was during this period I wrote the script of The Travellers . A key character is a set designer for opera so I thought Capriccio was a suitable title—largely because I planned to use a section of the famous soprano aria in the final scene of Richard Strauss’s opera.



I found that no one responded to this, usually confusing it with cappuccino, the well-known beverage. I switched the title to Sarabande but this was more mystifying, as few people knew it was a dance. Next, I tried.

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