Director/Producer/Film

Cinema Now

Andrew Bailey
Ed. Paul Duncan

TASCHEN

CATE SHORTLAND
Born 10 August 1968 in Temora, Australia

Withe the lyrical coming-of-age drama Somersault (2004), which swept the Australian Film Institute Awards in 2004, winning thirteen prizes, writer-director Cate Shortland made an auspicious feature debut, eliciting breakthrough performances by Abbie Cornish and Sam Worthington as anguished young paramours in a faded Australian ski town. As Heidi, a 16-year-old girl who skips out on her home life after making moves on her mother's boyfriend, Cornish intuits the psychological complexities of a young woman who means well but doesn't grasp the ramifications of her budding sexuality. Arriving off-season in the desolate resort town, Heidi finds work at a petrol station and a surrogate mother in the form of Irene, a lonely woman who gives Heidi longing. But she slips back into her self-destructive patterns of drinking and promiscuity after falling for the handsome but repressed son of a wealthy local farmer, whose own sexual awakening is just as messy. Shot with a handheld camera in and around the Lake George area of New South Wales, Somersault comes alive through director of photography Robert Humphreys' wintry, monochromatic images of Heidi rushing into the cold chill of adulthood, with its nuanced sexuality and frequent disappointments. Cornish, who was 20 when the film was shot, and the first to audition for the role of Heidi, delivers a revelatory performance; she seems to be discovering life's uncomfortable pull in tandem with the character she plays.

FILMS
2004 Somersault

Selected Awards
2004 Somersault: Best Film, Best Direction, Best Original Screenplay, Best Lead Actor, Best Lead Actress, Australian Film Institute Awards; best Feature Film, Best Direction, Best Script, Best Cinematography, best Actress, IF Awards Australia

2005 Somerasult: Special Mention (Best Dramatic Feature - World Cinema competition: Breakthrough Awards), Miami Film Festival