Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis to star in veteran director’s first Australian film since 1988

Shooting is due to begin on Monday in Melbourne on The Eye Of The Storm, veteran director Fred Schepisi’s first film made back home in Australia since Evil Angels in 1988.

Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis play siblings at the bedside of their mother in this family story. Charlotte Rampling plays the dying but still powerful matriarch.The screenplay has been penned by Happy Feet writer Judy Morris.

The Eye Of The Storm will be the first film made from a novel by Nobel Prize winner Patrick White – the book of the same name was published in 1973 — and a dozen private investors have put up nearly A$15 million to make it happen. The film has also benefited from the Producers Offset, a 40% rebate on production expenditure which has been in place for Australian films since mid 2007.

The Little Film Co is handling sales on The Eye Of The Storm, which will be released locally by Transmission. The film has been presold to ABC TV.

The only government funding is a grant from Film Victoria. Shooting will also take place in Sydney, where the story is set.

“It is a quality package and at this time in the world it is very hard to find the money for a film like this,” said Jonathan Shteinman, executive producer alongside Edward Simpson and Bob Marcs.

“We would have been very unlikely to finance a film of this scope and scale without the producer offset,” said Gregory Read, who is producing alongside long-time collaborator  Antony Waddington and Schepisi.