US movie release for Sydney Filmmaker
Sydney filmmaker Kane Senes will have his feature film Echoes of War released in the US next month.
Originally made as a short film which won awards at film festivals, Senes and co-writer John Chriss were encouraged to expand it into a feature film. Set in 1866 after the American Civil War, it’s a story about a man returning home from war after a long absence, suffering from what is now understood to be post traumatic stress.
Kane Senes at work
Chriss has described their collaboration as a “creative connection” and has said that while casting was a long process –the shoot in Austin, Texas was done in two months.
Directed by Kane Senes and co-written by Senes and Chriss, the story is set in post-Civil War Texas where two neighboring farm families are grieving their losses while they struggle to survive.
When Wade Riley (James Badge Dale) returns from fighting for the Confederacy, he discovers that Randolph McCluskey (William Forsythe) and family have been stealing animals from the Reillys’ traps. Taking matters into his own hands, his actions spark another tragic and senseless war. Ethan Embry, Maika Monroe and Rhys Wakefield also appear.
When asked about being Australian and telling a quintessential American story, Senes said recently in an interview on FilmInk that outsiders have often made good films about America or American life, citing Sam Mendes and Roman Polanski as examples.
“Ultimately every story is about something inherently human and therefore universal” he said.
Senes, who worked in Sydney on Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, is now based in Los Angeles where he is developing his next feature. He doesn’t see himself returning to Australia for the time being unless there is a particular project.
Kane Senes is my boy! My alter-ego youngest nephew, younger by a long way, like I was to his daddy, THAT boy! This story is the story of our family, and my estrangement of many years from it, due to my own war, and the effects of that on himself, his daddy, and on the whole family. It’s original title, changed most ill-advisedly by his production company because it was too similar to another film title, was A Relative Stranger, and I was it’s inspiration. I have a poster of the film with a hand-written dedication to that effect from the writer/director himself to prove it!