Premiere & a Party for town

The glitz and glamour of the red carpet will come to Karratha tomorrow for an exclusive Pilbara film preview.

The Furnance, which premieres at the Red Earth Arts Precinct, is a film set in 1897 WA and explores the themes of blood, greed and gold. It tells the story of a young Afghan cameleer who forms an unlikely partnership with a mysterious bushman on the run with two stolen Crown gold bars.

Written and directed by Roderick Mackay, it was the only Australian film to earn official selection at the Venice International Film Festival last month. The Karratha screening will be a fundraiser for the Pilbara Universities Centre community English course.

One of the film’s producers, Brendon Grylls, said the film sold out all shows at the Perth Festival earlier this month.

“I’m an executive producer on the film so I’ve been involved the whole way through,” he said. “We launched at the Perth Festival last week off the back of a world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

“It’s a western, but it also tells sort of the untold story of about how multicultural Australia was in the 1880s, with Ghan cameleers and Chinese goldsmiths, and people from all over the world basically came to Australia for the gold rush.”

Mr Grylls said the event was the perfect opportunity to dress up for a worthy cause.

“Given that PUC has got a very successful community English course going, I thought that would be nice thing to do,” he said.

“You don’t get to walk the red carpet in Karratha that often.”

A public screening will also be held at REAP.