Crime and Punishment

Research Background

Crime & Punishment is a feature-length cinematic adaption of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel that takes a classic text and displaces it via a contemporary setting in a modern Australian city.Whilst much contemporary Australian filmmaking addresses Australian identity by placing the “Aussie” character and rural/urban landscape at the forefront (often in return for government-funded financial production resources) this film addresses the question of whether it is possible to make a film from the Australian perspective rather than it being about Australia.

Research Contribution

The innovative method adopted in Crime & Punishment operates at two ways. Firstly the film reinvents Australian film by embracing world literature and bringing it to the Australian cinema screen, a rarely attempted creative endeavour. In an approach that eschews the recognisably local—colloquial dialogue, recognizable Australian settings and visual tropes, the film embraces a “world feel.” Through its use of“foreignness”—foreign vehicles, custom-made costumes, foreign monetary systems, old and new locations and a dark environment, the director strips “Australian-ness” from the film, offering a new and challenging filmic aesthetic. Secondly, the film circumvents the traditional government-funded production system, which has straight jacketed Australian film, and has embraced a successful and personal, research-driven, private and crowd-funded approach.

Research Significance

Crime & Punishment has been selected to screen at the University of British Columbia’s “Crime and Punishment at 150” conference in Canada, 2016.

http://cenes.ubc.ca/events/event/crime-and-punishment-conference/