Filmed in the Blue Mountains, Book Week is a shaggy dark comedy about a disgraced novelist turned English teacher trying to find redemption.

For generations, dressing up for Book Week has been an Aussie school tradition. But for high-school English teacher Nicholas Cutler (Alan Dukes), it’s the week from hell. Once a literary enfant terrible, and now simply a terrible man, he’s now struggling to instil a love of reading in teenagers who’d rather toy with their phones and dress up as movie superheroes. Trying to roll with these bad new times, Nicholas has penned a trashy zombie story. He’s tantalisingly close to a literary comeback – but it’ll be at the expense of his students, colleagues and long-suffering family. Will this be the week Mr Cutler finally has people’s backs, not paperbacks?

Writer/director Heath Davis based this film on his own experiences as a teacher. Shot in Katoomba and featuring Western Sydney locals as extras, Book Week offers a wry new comedy with a genial fondness for community – the kind you don’t always find in books.