Our Next Hyphenate David Caesar

Writer, director, and Hi4H February 2019 guest host David Caesar

Our next guest is a prolific Aussie filmmaker who's been working steadily in both film and television for years.

You might know him from his collaborations with Ben Mendelsohn in Australiana comedies Idiot Box (1996), Mullet (2001) and Prime Mover (2009). He also made the period crime comedy Dirty Deeds (2002), featuring Bryan Brown, Toni Collette, John Goodman, Sam Neill, and Sam Worthington, and directed the TV-to-film adaptation Nowhere Boys: The Book of Shadows.

He's been prolific on television, directing episodes of RFDS, Water Rats, All Saints, Miss Fisher's Muder Mysteries, Underbelly, Love Child and many more.

For audiences of a certain generation, he's perhaps most recognisable from his role as one of the judges on Race Around the World, the 1997 ABC series that propelled John Safran to fame. Caesar was, for our money, the first iteration of the quintessentially antagonistic “mean” TV judge, and should really be sent regular royalties from Simon Cowell and all the other imitators.

But forget all that, because David's about to experience his greatest credit to date: that of Hell Is For Hyphenates guest host!

Which filmmaker has he chosen to talk about on the show?

None other than Bruno Dumont!

Dumont has been making feature films since the late 1990s, first known for his gritty rural French dramas La vie de Jésus (1997) and L'humanite (1999), the latter of which won him the Grand Prix at Cannes. He's dipped his toe into existential horror with Twentynine Palms (2003), gone to war in Flandres (2006), and explored the effects of religion in Hadewijch (2009) and Hors Satan (2011).

He often works with nonprofessional actors, but has recently begun collaborating with stars like Juliette Binoche for the period biopic Camille Claudel 1915 (2013) and the high-concept comedy Ma Loute (2016).

Dumont has also worked in TV, his mini-series P'tit Quinquin (2014) becoming a smash hit and prompting him to make the follow-up Coincoin et les z'inhumains (2018), which you should really track down immediately.

He has just wrapped production on a sequel to his 2017 film, Jeanette, l'enfance de Jeanne d'Arc (2017), a musical about Joan of Arc featuring young Joan headbanging to the heavy metal she's also singing. Seriously. It's a trip.

As you can probably tell, Dumont is clearly one of the most interesting filmmakers working today. But what is it about his films that appeals to David so much? Join us on February 28 when we find out!

Our next filmmaker of the month, Bruno Dumont

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