Lucky Miles

They started as strangers, by journey’s end they’d nearly killed each other

An Indonesian fishing boat abandons a group of Iraqi and Cambodian men on a remote part of the Western Australian coast. Told there is a bus over the dunes, the men are abandoned to a desert the size of Poland. While most are quickly rounded up, three men with little in common but their history of misfortune elude capture and begin an epic but confused journey drawn on by their hopes amplified by the empty desert. Pursued by an army reservist unit more concerned with playing ball sports and music, our three protagonists wander deeper into trouble, searching desperately among the harsh beauty of the Pilbara for evidence of a western, liberal democracy. Or the promised bus.

Lucky Miles screened in festivals all over the world. It opened the Adelaide Film Festival in 2007 and went on to win the Audience Award at the Sydney Film Festival, the Special Jury Prize at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Best Screenplay at the Vladivostok International Film Festival, the Black Pearl for Best New Director at the Middle East International Film Festival, the Grand Prix at the 9th Rencontres Internationales du Cinéma des Antipodes in Saint-Tropez and Best Film at the 3rd Asian Festival of First Films in Singapore. It was also nominated for Best Screenplay at the 2007 Asia Pacific Screen Awards, and Best Film and Best Screenplay at the 2007 Australian Film Institute Awards and the 2007 IF Awards.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIDjECVY1dg

Exciting, political and darkly humorous. ***** The Advertiser

Brilliant! One of the great Australian films about Australia.