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Viewer Advice: Contains high-impact violence.
Described as “the most powerful film ever made in Australia” by The Age, this iconic Australian classic is poised to be the most intense and visceral experience you will ever have in the cinema.
People remember when and where they saw Ghosts… of the Civil Dead, which originally screened at MIFF in 1988. Inspired by the memoirs of long-time, hardcore American prisoner Jack Henry Abbott and drawing on extensive research into the incarceration system in the US and Australia, the film unfolds in a fictional ‘new generation’ prison in the middle of the desert, in the not-too-distant future. There, new inmate Wenzil is admitted to a maximum-security facility administered by sinister authorities with ulterior motives.
Ghosts features a chillingly psychotic Nick Cave, whose rendition of deranged dementia turns the film upside down, and an unnerving David Field, whose portrayal of human corruption as Wenzil is masterful. Cave also provides the superb soundtrack alongside Blixa Bargeld and Mick Harvey, the latter of whom appears in MIFF 70’s special Hear My Eyes screening of Chopper. Nominated for 10 AFI Awards, including Best Film, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Original Score, and winning Best Production Design, Ghosts is a simply unmissable Australian classic.
“A masterpiece on the order of Goya.” – Time Out (UK)
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Producer/writer Evan English will be joined by academic Simon During for a post-screening seminar + Q&A discussing the themes of the film.
