The story begins deep in rural Cambodia and follows the journey of an innocent boy who is enslaved on a fishing trawler who soon realises his only hope of freedom is to become as violent as his captors.
Buoyancy is the debut feature for writer/director Rodd Rathjen. A VCA graduate and MIFF Accelerator alumnus Rodd impressed critics and audiences alike with his highly cinematic short film Tau Seru which premiered at Cannes International Film Festival as part of Critics Week and won Best Australian Short at MIFF, both in 2013.
Buoyancy will be produced by Causeway Films trio Sam Jennings, Kristina Ceyton and Victorian Rita Walsh. It’s the first narrative feature for Rita who has been steadily carving out a path in the film industry. She was associate producer and post supervisor on Casting JonBenet which premiered at Sundance 2017 and is currently finishing producing feature doc I Used to Be Normal - A Boyband Fangirl Story. Rita was also a recent recipient of Film Victoria and Natalie Miller Fellowships’ Women in Leadership Development initiative.
Other Victorian crew includes Director of Photography Michael Latham, who was cinematographer on Rodd’s shorts, as well as Casting JonBenet, and Editor Graeme Pereira who is an accomplished commercials editor and was nominated for an Australian Screen Editors award for his work on Rodd’s short film Sweat.
The film will be entirely shot on location in Cambodia and Thailand and post produced in Victoria utilising the expertise of Soundfirm Victoria who remain at the forefront of post-production in Australia.
Image credit: Rodd Rathjen