In a fascinating public art initiative, the Sweet Country Stills Exhibition showcased captivating behind the scenes photographs taken by four stills photographers during the making of the award-winning Australian film Sweet Country.

Director Warwick Thornton – an Indigenous Australian filmmaker whose debut feature was the acclaimed Samson and Delilah – helmed this important new film. It’s an intense period western set in outback Northern Territory in 1929, and tells the story of an Aboriginal man on the run after killing a white man in self-defence. The film’s powerful and moving performances come from Indigenous actors Hamilton Morris, Natassia Gorey-Furber, and Tremayne and Trevon Doolan, plus well-known actors Bryan Brown and Sam Neill.

 Warwick Baker, Michael Corridore, Tamara Dean and Mark Rogers travelled to Alice Springs, to capture portraits of the cast and locations as the film was made, often working with limited time due to the constraints of the movie’s tight schedule.

The subsequent exhibition of their work at Darling Quarter’s OPEN consisted of 16 large-scale photographs (2.4m x 2.4m), four from each photographer, and highlighted not only the actors, but the stunning desert country that is just as much a part of the story as the characters.

The Sweet Country Stills Exhibition was a groundbreaking partnership between BUNYA Productions and PHOTOPLAY, supported by the Screen Australia Indigenous Department
and produced by aMBUSH Gallery (an initiative of Wiltshire + Dimas).