On adapting Crime & Punishment to an Australian Context

Abstract

In 2013 I wrote, directed and produced a feature-length cinema adaptation of Dostoevsky’s Crime & Punishment – now nearing completion. The film, when it is released, will be unique in the Australian film landscape. Aside from Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet and Geoffrey Wright’s Macbeth, both adapted from source material designed for performance by actors, almost no international classics have been filmed in this country. In approaching both the screenplay and the production I struggled with various contextual and practical questions – many of which questioned my right to do the film, in Australia, at all: What is an “Australian” film and why have Australian filmmakers shied away from adapti..