Some secrets and superstitions are best left alone.

After the stunning short Jewboy (MIFF 05) and stirring documentary The Tall Man, Australian director Tony Krawitz makes his full-length fiction feature debut with Dead Europe. Based on the novel by The Slap's Christos Tsiolkas, this enigmatic effort unravels a melancholy mystery filled with past failures, present uncertainty and future repercussions.

Shaped by grief and guilt, Dead Europe continues Krawitz's commitment to brave, bold filmmaking. With an Australian-born Greek photographer's first trip to his ancestral homeland at the centre, the visceral film dwells in the unseemly underbelly of the European continent.

Featuring a cast of local talent including Ewen Leslie (Sleeping Beauty), Marton Csokas (South Solitary) and Kodi Smit-McPhee (Let Me In; ParaNorman, MIFF 12), Dead Europe offers a “dose of arthouse angst with a gothic garnish” - Variety.

Tony Krawitz will be a guest of the festival and will do a post-screening Q&A.

D Tony Krawitz P Emile Sherman, Iain Canning, Liz Watts S Louise Fox Dist Transmission Films TD DCP/2012

See the film and read the book; browse online at Readings.