Luke Agius is from Quakers Hill, a suburb nestled in Western Sydney. He has had a passion to be a film maker ever since he was eleven years old. Now at only twenty-one, he has made many films. His film “Dead Air” which he has submitted to two film festivals, received a place in one as a finalist and the other a semi finalist, which has been screened internationally. I took the opportunity to gain insight from Luke on what it is like to be a young Australian filmmaker in such an exciting time for film.
So where did film making all start for you?
When I was a kid my cousins always used to bring back a show bag from the Easter show for my sister and I. I always got one specific show bag that had a Fuji film camera in it. I would take pictures of everything with it. I didn’t even know how to use a camera. I was three or four years old so I would wind the camera back and keep taking photos over and over again. I did this sort of thing for years and mum bought me a little Kodak camera and started taking photos, I wouldn’t even care if they got developed, I just liked having a camera. When I was in primary school I enjoyed writing a lot, I aspired to becoming an author. At about age ten I started getting much more involved in photography again and I started doing little shorts, stop motion animations that involved my socks, or little bottles of cologne. Then I found out my dad had a JVC camcorder when I was about eleven so I started making films with my friends and that’s how it all began.
Was there a defining moment when you decided to be a filmmaker?
I used to watch this guy called James Rolf on Youtube and he did this series called Angry Video Game Nerd but then I found out he also did reviews of short little horror movies at the time, and at age eleven it was a huge thing getting into horror films. I used to just love watching his videos and hear him talk about these films and all that sort of stuff. I did some research into this guy and found that he made his own short films including a documentary where he talked about when he started making films and he did it in the same way. He used to do little stop motion animations too. I thought, that’s so cool. I’ve just always loved the narrative of story telling. I thought why not see what I could actually do with the camera, so I picked it up. That’s where it all started at age eleven and I kept going ever since.
How many films have you made?
Over one hundred. Some of them go for less than ten seconds, some of them go for thirteen minutes and over. Some of them I wouldn’t actually put out there but I think only in recent years have my ideas matured, formed and become interesting. But they are always still developing.
So what are you working on at the moment?
After making a bunch of short films and working on other projects over the past ten years, I decided to jump into making a feature film. Not long ago I read this book by Robert Rodriguez which is called Rebel Without a crew. He talks about when he was in his early 20s he just decided to make feature film. I had been writing this screenplay for three or four years thinking when is this going to get made? I finally decided I’m going to make this feature film titled ”The Ferryman’’ which is about a taxi driver that runs down on his luck and he results to doing very abhorrent things for very abhorrent people. Its sort of coming together, we’re currently in casting, I have an awesome crew already, I’ve got a great producer and an amazing assistant director. I’m hoping it will be filmed in June and July and released next year on the festival circuit, so we will see how it goes.
What are your accomplishments so far?
My first accomplishment in film was when I was in primary school and high school. I entered the Connected Learning Awards for film, which was sponsored by the Department of Education. My films got accepted three years in a row. I got second and third place over a span of three years. I got into art express for my HSC project and my which was exhibited at the Armoury in Olympic Park and the Female Orphan School at Sydney University. My most recent project “Dead Air” got into Fargo Film Festival in North Dakota and was a finalist which was pretty cool, it was my first international film festival my work was selected into. It also received semi-finalist for Made in the West Festival, so that was exciting. It feels great to have only entered my film into two festivals and have been selected as a finalist and semi-finalist for both of them.
What would you say the hardest things about being a young film maker are?
I think we live in a society where people are really beaten down for what they believe in and what they want to do. It’s so easy to throw criticism, like that quote, “not everyone is an artist, but everyone’s a f*#cking critic”. I think a lot of people are selling themselves short because of things like that. Probably some of the best storytellers or film makers aren’t getting out there, where there’s a lot of people out there who do have the confidence but probably suck. So there’s a weird paradigm.
What would you say the highlights of being a young film maker are?
There are none! Everyone thinks you’re a giant nerd! (jokingly). But really its nice to share a story and sometimes you get people who really love your stories, there’s a bunch of independent screenings all over the world. One in Sydney that I go to regularly is called Kino. It’s a little hot pot of aspiring film makers coming together showing their work once a month. It’s really interesting to see how things come together. The other high light is that you meet a lot of really interesting people and people that you will work with again and again, its just a nice community. Especially in Sydney where the industry is so small. So you run into people just as dedicated as you are over and over again. It’s really nice.
Being a film maker who identifies as indigenous, how do you feel that indigeneity is framed in modern media? Do you think indigenous people are represented well in the media?
Indigeneity is often reflected negatively. It’s a very controversial topic. Lots of projects in film and media such as first contact, kind of go in and exploit issues in indigenous communities. There are a few film makers that really reject that idea. As much as I hate Baz Lurhman, I think he does a lot of good work in promoting Aboriginals and looking at Aboriginals equally in his films despite what era he might be basing his films in. I think that print media paints Aboriginals in a very negative light. They are very quick to not champion the successes of indigenous people, but rather look at the pit falls of indigenous people and the communities have had. A lot of that is due to post colonialism and issues starting with invasion, which has continued for hundreds of years. Despite this, it’s great to see several indigenous film makers such as Ivan Sen and Warwick Thornton telling indigenous stories from an indigenous perspective on the big screen.
Being a young male film maker, do you feel any threat when you see propaganda that says “The future of film is female”?
No, not at all. I think that women in film have been locked out of leading roles for a long time. I wouldn’t necessarily agree that the future of film is female, but I do believe that the future of female is a lot more equal, and that is something I strongly support. I think that if you argue that the future of film is female, you’re looking back at the problem that was there before and dishing it onto a generation that is not necessarily to blame. If women do gain the popularity and the majority of roles in the future, then that’s just returning the injustice that has been happening all along. Is that fair on the modern generation who didn’t create the problem? I do think that there should be more women in film. I think that more women should write stories, direct films, become cinematographers, become writers and be represented equally.
Where do you see the future of film heading?
I think that indie cinema is going to explode. We currently have up and coming film makers coming out of the rough who are going to take the notion of Hollywood and flip it on its head and give us something new. I think it’s been too long that we’ve been dishing out this blockbuster bullshit that’s been given to us for the last twenty or so years. I think that independent film is going to take over and the use of drones and other new film making techniques, along with more access and better writing, will make it better. We’re going to hear a lot of great stories. I think there is a revolution coming in film, and I’m very excited to be a part of it.
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