Rowe wants an Australian producer

Camera d’Or winner Michael Rowe is in Australia to present his film Año Bisiesto (Leap Year) at the Melbourne International Film Festival, and although he’s interested in working here, he hasn’t been contacted by local producers.

“I’d be very excited to do a project in Australia. I’d need to write a script specifically to shoot here, and development funding, but there have been no Australian producers who have shown any interest,” Rowe told Encore.

The Ballarat native has developed his career in Mexico, and his success at Cannes made the Australian industry wonder who this mystery ex-pat was. He arrived in Melbourne on Tuesday.

“Everybody here has been, ‘who the hell are you, where did you come from and how did this happen?’ I’ve seen very interesting reactions here, and I’m very happy,” said Rowe. “A woman from a community ratio station said she was unsure whether she wanted to interview me because the film depicted violence against women, and I’d forgotten what it was like to have knee-jerk reactions to works of art, based on political postures. That’s something that’s very left-wing Australian, and didn’t happen in Mexico at all.”