THE WAITING CITY
 
PRODUCTION BEGINS IN INDIA ON CLAIRE McCARTHY’S
‘THE WAITING CITY’
 
Starring Radha Mitchell, Joel Edgerton & Isabel Lucas
 
THE WAITING CITY, a new Australian feature film by the exciting film-making team of director Claire McCarthy and producer Jamie Hilton, commenced shooting yesterday in Calcutta, India.
 
THE WAITING CITY is a mystic-infused love story that follows a young couple’s journey to India to collect their adopted baby.
 
The film stars Radha Mitchell (Finding Neverland, Pitch Black); recent AFI Award nominee Joel Edgerton (The Square, Star Wars: Episode II & III) and rising talent, Isabel Lucas (soon to be seen in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen).
 
Speaking from India as the cameras started rolling, director Claire McCarthy said, “It’s an intimate, complex love story, set against the exhilarating, epic backdrop of Calcutta – a place that I’ve filmed in before and have a deep connection with. It’s impossible not to be effected by this place and certainly, the characters in The Waiting City are totally transformed by the people here and their powerful homeland.”
 
McCarthy’s previous credits include the documentary, Sisters (which screened on ABC Television this year and follows the experiences of her strong-willed real life sister, Helena, who naively nose-dives into volunteer work in Calcutta) and the feature film, Cross Life which screened at the 2007 Sydney Film Festival and Pusan International Film Festival in Korea.
 
Film producer, Jamie Hilton said, “We’ve got such an incredible team on this project. Not only do we have three of Australia’s most exciting on-screen talents in the lead roles, but many in our crew are internationally acclaimed. Collectively, we have two Aussie Academy Award nominees in our team – Paul ‘Salty’ Brincat (Best Sound, The Thin Red Line) and Veronika Jenet (Best Editing, The Piano), and an Oscar winner – Paul Pattison (Best Make-up, Braveheart) plus Claire will continue her close working collaboration with AFI Award-winning cinematographer, Denson Baker ACS (The Black Balloon).”
 
"We’re confident that this film will be an Australian story, but an International film. It's not often that audiences get to see an English-language love story in a beautiful place like India and it is very exciting to be the first Australian feature film to be entirely shot here," said Hilton.
 
The Indian production team is headed by Harish Armin of Speaking Tree, whose credits include Wes Anderson’s Darjeeling Limited (production manager) and Mira Nair’s The Namesake (production supervisor). He was also line producer for one of the year’s most highly anticipated Bollywood blockbusters, Ghajini.
 
THE WAITING CITY will be released in Australia by Hopscotch Films and has been picked up for international sales by Mark Horowitz at H20 Motion Pictures.
 
THE WAITING CITY was developed in association with the former Australian Film Commission’s INDIVISION program and was financed by Screen Australia, the new Producer Offset, Spectrum Films, Efilm, Exodus and the NSW Film and Television Office.
 
THE WAITING CITY is expected in cinemas nationally late 2009.