Marta Balaga “Head South” director Jonathan Ogilvie is all about underdogs. “It’s not a story about winners. It’s a story about also-rans, to use this racing term, because there is nothing to win,” he tells Variety about the International Film Festival Rotterdam opener, which sees schoolboy Angus (Ed Oxenbould) falling for a girl and for post-punk music in 1979’s New Zealand. “There wasn’t a real music industry, so you couldn’t become a rock star.
Back in those days, we often talked about ‘the tyranny of distance.’ We felt so removed from everything. But it was the triumph of distance, because it allowed people to interpret things in a new way.
It’s a film about music, yes, but also about art and creative expression.” Praising Oxenbould, he adds: “On the page, Angus could seem like a nasty little brat.
But Ed was also in a band; his brother was also living in London. It just gelled. The only thing he said to me was: ‘I don’t have a problem with the nude scene.
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