Australia

Grand Visions is a short season of films driven by the vision and boldness of strong directors; passion projects made on a grand and uncompromising scale. The season kicks off with director Baz Luhrmann's western/ war adventure/ romance hybrid that's set in the Australian outback and stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. It is 1939 and Lady Sarah Ashley has travelled halfway round the world to persuade her husband to sell his cattle station and return back home to Blighty. It's soon obvious that she hasn't anticipated the primitive realities of life in northern Australia, nor has her upbringing prepared her for an encounter with the likes of the rough and ready drover who is instructed to chaperone her from Darwin to the ranch. But the pair are fated to become much more closely acquainted than either could have imagined. The plot also encompasses the lot of the region's Aboriginal people, via the plight of local lad Nullah, and the first Japanese attacks on the northern territories. Edited for language, Gripping epic, set just prior to WWII, bursts at the seams with charismatic star turns by Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. She's a prim English aristocrat who returns to Australia to claim an inherited ranch, and he's a rugged drover who helps her battle wealthy land-grabbers trying to steal it from her. To make matters worse, the Japanese are threatening to invade the continent. Bryan Brown, Jack Thompson, Essie Davis, Brandon Walters. Produced, cowritten and directed by Baz Luhrmann.