Australian filmmaker Peter Sant recently shot his debut feature, Maneland, on the north west coast of Malta over 18 days.
The film is described as “an experiential film about a stasis and slow change.”
It follows a crippled king who is living with his two daughters in a bunker on an isolated island following the spread of virus. Following a serious of encounters, the virus seems to return.
Sant wrote the film, which is in the Maltese language, with co-writer Alex Vella Gera. Sant's parents migrated to Australia in the 1950s from Malta – and the director himself lived there for a period during the 2000s.
"I was surprised to discover that the local [film] industry is virtually non-existent, but that Malta has appeared on countless screens all over the world in films like Munich, Troy, Gladiator, By the Sea, etc, but always as a double for elsewhere."
"So to me it’s kind of this eternal elsewhere. The script is based around this idea but deals with it in a playful manner,” Sant told IF.
The film’s cast are all Maltese, with the exception of John Zhang, who plays a Chinese billionare. The DP is British cinematographer Martin Testar, whose credits include Spy Game and Shane Meadows' A Room for Romeo Brass. Production design is by Charlo Dalli (Game of Thrones, Assassin's Creed).
Maneland was in development for five years and is part-financed by the Malta Film Fund. “We approached numerous sales agents and distributors prior to production but as expected any hope of pre-sales on a debut feature with no known cast and no genre is slim,” said Sant.
“We did have a lot of interest in the project but no real commitment from sales agents or distributors in the pre-production stage. One UK sales agent rejected the project and described it as 'starting off as a cross between Cinderella and The Tempest and ending in deep arthouse', an inadvertently encouraging response.”
The film will complete post-production in the UK.