The director of a controversial movie about the man who carried out Australia’s worst mass shooting defended his movie on Friday and warned that the lessons of the Port Arthur massacre are being forgotten.
Martin Bryant killed 35 people and wounded 23 in a rampage at a tourist spot in Tasmania in 1996 that so scarred the country that its guns laws were rewritten within days.
Nitram — Bryant’s first name backwards — is one of the most hotly debated films in the running for the top prize at the Cannes film festival in France.
Photo: AP
The gunman is played by US actor Caleb Landry Jones, who looks shockingly like the killer.
However, director Justin Kurzel told reporters at Cannes that firearms rules have been relaxed so much since that “there are now more guns in Australia than before Port Arthur.”
Despite 650,000 weapons being taken out of circulation after the massacre, the maker of Assassin’s Creed and Snowtown said history could repeat itself.
Kurzel has faced severe criticism at home for making the movie, with fellow director Richard Keddie saying: “Art does not justify a Martin Bryant movie... and it is entirely irresponsible.”
Others said it could not but be exploitative and would retraumatize survivors and families of the dead.
However, Kurzel — who lives in Tasmania — said that 25 years after the bloodshed “there are generations who are not aware of Port Arthur. “I felt a film could do more than an opinion piece or a [political] debate” to sound the alarm about gun reform.”
The movie shows none of the murders and stops abruptly as Bryant takes his semi-automatic rifle out of his bag in a cafe at the former penal colony, one of Tasmania’s top tourist attractions.
“There was just no way I could go there,” knowing how much the killings “broke up that community,” the director told reporters.
“I understand why we have had a lot of heat and why some are very distressed about a film being made. But we made it because of the absolute absurdity of a character like this walking into a gun store and being able to buy semi-automatic weapons like fishing rods” as Bryant did, he said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese