Byron-based filmmaker Dominic Allen brings his new feature Tiber home to the Byron Bay International Film Festival this October. Shot in Italian, across Rome and central Italy, the film follows art historian Marco and his young daughter Lucia on a road journey through a landscape alive with art, history and memory.
Allen lived and studied in Rome. He says what stayed with him was the sense that Rome isn’t silent. ‘History isn’t behind you; it’s in the walls, churches, sculpture and river – it’s all around and feels alive. You can cross the Tiber on the same bridge ancient Romans used.’
‘I began to think memory works the same way, and so does love. It doesn’t leave us. The film grew from that intuition: a man carrying something private and heavy through a place that has been holding the weight of the past for thousands of years.’
The film begins with Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. Allen’s training is in fine art and classics. ‘I’ve always looked at cities through what people made in them. The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa is a figure caught between bliss and something close to pain. Frozen in marble yet completely alive. That contradiction is the film’s subject. Stone can hold a feeling long after the moment has passed, and so can the mind.’
At its heart, Tiber is an intimate father-daughter story with real-life father and daughter Marcus and Uma Cotterell in the roles.
‘I wanted their relationship to feel lived rather than written – the teasing, boredom, sudden seriousness children have, and the way a parent tries to be present and sometimes can’t.
‘Uma was eight and had never been in front of a camera. You can’t direct the way a child leans into her father in a car; you can only make room for it. That warmth is the heart of the film.’
Allen says he is happy to bring the film to Byron where he lives with producer and wife Margarita, and where the DOP and colourist live. It’s also where he edited the movie. I hope Byron audiences will meet it on its own terms or, as we say up here, hold space for it.’
Tiber has its NSW premiere at Palace Byron Bay on Tuesday, 20 October at 7pm, followed by a Q&A with cast and crew in attendance.
Full program and tickets at bbff.com.au
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