“When I started writing Lonesome, I was thinking about where our queer community is right now in Australia,” says writer-director Craig Boreham. “Our connections via social media are constant but the physical community spaces have begun to disappear and our big cities can be trickier places to navigate when you are searching for your people.”
Lonesome is a new feature film by award-winning Australian director, Craig Boreham (Teenage Kicks), exploring sexuality, loneliness and isolation in a world that has never been more connected.
Craig Boreham’s writing often delves into the complexities of how people relate to each other and what is hiding under the surface.
“A big theme that I was exploring in the writing of Lonesome was the erosion of community and the isolation that people can feel emotionally despite the world being more connected than ever before in any time in history,” says Craig. “Each of the characters that appear along Casey’s journey are struggling with their own search for connection in their own ways. I am always fascinated by the way people present in their exterior versus what is bubbling under the surface, and I wanted to explore that idea in the characters who inhabit this world. Casey and Tib are both people who carry the scars of individual trauma and they have built their walls up hard and high. They have these deeply buried histories and neither of them is truly equipped to be open about them. It really becomes the hurdle that they need to get over to be able to really see each other.”
“Lonesome is a poignant and timely queer love story, and one that emerges unexpectedly amid the transactional world of casual hook-up culture,” says producer Ben Ferris Craig’s talent as a director allows him a lightness of touch to find the comic in the tragic, while losing none of the authenticity and tenderness at the film’s heart. Dean Francis’ photography lends a cinematic grace to the basements and rooftops of a Sydney less frequently depicted on screen.”
“I’m excited about Craig’s vision and the great talent we have on board with Josh Lavery and Daniel Gabriel and the other supporting cast,” says producer Ulysses Oliver, “I can’t wait for people to experience this part of Sydney or Australian culture that maybe they haven’t seen before with real authenticity.”
Casey (Josh Lavery), a country lad running from a small-town scandal, finds himself down and out in the big smoke of Sydney. When he meets Tib (Daniel Gabriel), a city boy, struggling with his own scars of isolation, both men find something they have been missing but neither of them knows quite how to negotiate it.
It is available to rent on AppleTV, Amazon or YouTube movies in most territories and also on Netflix in Australia. In the US it is available on Dekkoo.
Statement from writer-director Craig Boreham
Lonesome is ultimately a journey of connection between two souls who are both leaves blowing in the wind. Casey is lost after a country town scandal tore his world apart. Tib, rejected by his broken family, tumbles through the world without direction and any kind of support network. His only connections are formed through meaningless encounters with random men he finds on hook-up apps. When their worlds collide, both men find something they have been missing but neither of them knows quite how to negotiate it.
When I started writing Lonesome, I was thinking about where our queer community is right now in Australia. Our connections via social media are constant but the physical community spaces have begun to disappear and our big cities can be trickier places to navigate when you are searching for your people.
Independent filmmaking is a very collaborative form and I wanted to fill the cast with a mix of LGBTQI+ actors and people drawn from the community that the film explores to have many authentic perspectives informing the storyworld.
I wanted the film to be honest about the part sex plays in this navigation and the way gay men in particular use it. Whether it is in the pursuit of intimate connection or to purely to pass the time or to express rage or as a transaction, sex is a big part of our day to day but still so often hidden in our screen stories.
From Page to Screen
In 2021 producers Ben Ferris and Ulysses Oliver came together to create Breathless Films with the aim to produce a slate of low budget indie feature films from exciting directors who would embrace the indie model. Craig Boreham was one of the directors they approached to see what he was working on.
“It’s a crazy endeavor but here we are,” says Ulysses. “We did a big creational process and we looked at over 100 scripts and met with about 50 filmmakers which took about six months. We loved the story, Craig has an amazing track record, and we were looking for points of difference, which Lonesome has, but overall, it was the very strong arc and character story of Lonesome that was shining through. It’s very ambitious given the limitations we have. We are a big believer in the idea that it is about the story, and money isn’t the most important factor. Imposing limitations around resources and time makes you make strong creative decisions that will shine through.”
Craig enlisted longtime collaborator Dean Francis to the project to come on board as a producer and the Director of Photography. “Dean and I first met when we were attending the Berlinale Talent campus many years ago,” says Craig. “We have been creative sounding boards for each other ever since and have always wanted to work on a film together. I love Dean’s camera work. He really has a wonderful eye and his own film Drown, which he shot as well, is full of the bold richness that I wanted to bring to Lonesome. Having such a long creative relationship was a real asset to the filmmaking. We know what each other likes and there was a real ease to the working relationship.”
Dean says “Craig is one of my oldest friends and we’ve seen each other’s sensibilities develop over a long period of time. This meant we could work quickly from an intuitive shared understanding of the film’s vision. It was an advantage being a producer as well because I could really be in Craig’s corner when it came to protecting his vision from some of the practical challenges the production faced along the way.”
The filming off Lonesome took place over four weeks all around Sydney in July 2021 between Covid lockdowns. Craig and cinematographer Dean Francis had decided to embrace the light of the cooler months to give the film a cinematic quality that is harder to achieve in the summer months which of course came with its own challenges.
Casting
As a director, Craig has the utmost respect for the actor’s craft and was determined to pull together an ensemble cast who would be dedicated to the story world and bring the characters of Lonesome to life.
Lonesome is a story told with a very queer lens and Craig was very keen to cast actors who would understand the world they were creating. His plan was to fill the cast with a mix of queer actors and authentic people drawn from the community that the film explores.
This proved a more difficult task than anticipated using traditional casting methods and Craig took a more unconventional approach and began exploring social media and even gay hook-up apps like Grindr to find the perfect cast.
The story of Lonesome hangs firmly on the shoulders of Casey played by Josh Lavery.
Casey is a country lad who has just arrived in Sydney after hitchhiking across the country fleeing from a small-town scandal. He carries a lot of guilt from his past and is struggling to find his feet in the big city. It’s a whole new world, and one that offers Casey an escape from his past if he can just manage to work out how to negotiate it.
A relative newcomer to screen acting Josh Lavery had previously acted in a couple of bold queer short films but it was a video confessional that caught director Craig Boreham’s attention. Josh had done a short online piece talking about his experience as a young gay kid isolated in the country but reaching out via webcam to older gay men to explore his sexuality. There were a lot of parallels between Josh’s own story and the character of Casey and Craig reached out to Josh via his popular Instagram profile.
When asked about his initial thoughts of the project, Josh says, “I was excited about the project from the moment I read it, especially given the script was so truthful and sexy and queer. Something I haven’t seen in a lot of other films. So many queer films are watered down to be more palatable for a wider audience which I always find frustrating. I love movies and art that push against this kind of sanitized representation and conservative morality. It’s something that drives the creative work I do and the work I want to keep doing. Lonesome has an authenticity I really relate to as a queer person and have been craving from queer cinema.”
Director Craig Boreham says of Josh, “I knew he was right for the role from our first meeting. He really understood what Casey was going through and he brought a lot of insight to the role. Josh really jumped into it boots and all, it was important to him that Casey’s journey felt authentic, and he drew on a lot of his own experiences of coming to the city as a young gay kid from the country. I was constantly impressed by what a fearless actor he is and his dedication to telling the story was really impressive.”
When asked about his character Casey, Josh has this to say, “Casey is a bit lost, a bit naive, a bit sad, a bit wide eyed. It’s a really big journey he takes throughout the film. Through exploring his sexuality and a new city, looking for connections and love in a meaningful way. I grew up in the country as well. I didn’t really have any meaningful connections until I moved to the city and then when I did, I would latch on hard because it was so new. So, I understand Casey and related to what he was going through in that way.”
“You can be in a shity situation but changing your circumstances can point you in a new direction”, says Josh. “Growing up, I was the only gay in my town, and it was hard. But moving to the city I found a new world. I really hope queer audiences relate to the authenticity of Lonesome and hopefully it reaches out and lets someone in some tiny town know they aren’t so alone.”
Tib lives by himself in a large warehouse that he has set up as home. He has been on his own since he was young and is a survivor and a loner who prefers to steer clear of emotional entanglements. His only real connections come in the form of anonymous encounters with men he finds on hook-up apps. He makes his money doing odd jobs and is very focussed on saving cash for a visa for his mother who was deported some years ago.
“Casting Daniel Gabriel in the role of Tib was a bit of a cosmic miracle”, says director Craig Boreham. “I really wanted to find an actor who understood the layers of the character and could bring that perfect mix of charisma and a guarded exterior, and I really wanted to find a queer actor. Turns out that is a lot harder than it sounds. We were hitting walls with agents who are still, in this day and age, reluctant to let queer performers take on queer roles. Some of them were downright hostile.”
“I started reaching out to people in the community via hook-up apps like Grindr and Scruff. We were in lockdown and a lot of people were online and there were a bunch of roles in the film that I was keen to cast with interesting people in the community. That’s where I bumped into Daniel. They had a great look and I sent them a message to ask if they had ever done any acting.”
Daniel was no newcomer to acting. They had completed a degree in performance Queensland University of Technology and since graduating had worked extensively in theatre on projects with Griffin theatre company, Belvoir, and Darlinghurst theatre as well as La Boite and Queensland Theatre in Brisbane. The Corona virus put a two-year hold on a one person show they were slated to do with Campbelltown Arts Centre.
“They were understandably pretty skeptical of my initial message,” says Craig, “like ‘who the hell is this sketchy dude telling me he’s making a movie and hitting me up on Grindr?’ But I convinced them I was legit, and we met up for a coffee to talk about it.”
“I thought he was a spam account. Still do,” says Daniel, with a wink, of that first encounter. “What drew me to the project was how blatantly gay and how real it is. A lot of what we see, when we see gay characters, is either complete caricature and stereo-typed or if it’s sexual then it’s totally animalistic and primal and there is no human connection there. I think what this film does so well is that we see that animalistic side of it but that’s just sex, sex is primal, but there are those moments where we get to see soft, queer love. Which is terrific and it’s so pretty to watch. It’s a love story and I think that’s very important right now.”
To bring the raw sexuality of Lonesome to the screen, the cast worked with Intimacy Coordinator Leah Pellinkhof.
Being a lesbian herself, Leah was dedicated to making sure the representations of gay male sex on screen felt real and visceral. She consulted with Craig and the cast to reshape her usual process, that to date had been primarily focused on heterosexual sex scenes, and they developed a process that was consultative and safe but authentic.
Director Craig Boreham says of working with the Intimacy Coordinator, “Working with Leah was like magic. She creates a space where the actors are able to have fun and perform boldly while always feeling safe and heard. Her process embraces story but speaks to performers in ways they can use practically and authentically.”
Daniel Gabriel who plays Tib in Lonesome says of the process, “Intimate scenes are extremely delicate terrain, one thing can go wrong, and someone gets traumatised for the rest of their life. Leah created immaculate boundaries for us from day one to fall back on if something felt incorrect and gave us a universal language so that no wires were ever crossed. Her thoroughness and dedication to safety is so tactfully and empathetically implemented that it always felt like a friend was looking after us. She is a genius.”
Craig Boreham is an award-winning Sydney based writer and director. Boreham’s films have screened at over 200 international festivals: including the Berlin International Film Festival, Sydney Film Festival, Cannes, Palm Springs, Frameline and Outfest. He has received numerous awards and nominations including the Berlinale Teddy Award for his short film Transient and four nominations for the prestigious Iris Prize in Wales. Other awards include Best Film at My Queer Career (Drowning, Ostia La Notte Finale), Mardi Gras Film Festival, The City of Melbourne Best Short Film Award, Melbourne Queer Film Festival and National Film Sound Archive Orlando Award among others. In 2008 a retrospective of Craig’s work, Cinema of True Poison was presented by Fundacion Triangulo in Madrid.
Craig’s debut feature film Teenage Kicks premiered at the Sydney Film Festival in 2016 to critical acclaim. The Guardian, named Boreham as “a strong new voice in Australian Queer cinema”, and the film was runner up in the Sydney Film Festival Audience Awards. Teenage Kicks was nominated for Best Direction in a feature film at the Australian Directors Guild Awards, and for Best Feature at the Iris Prize Festival, where lead actor Miles Szanto won Best Male Performer. Other nominations include Best Original Score at the AACTA Awards. Craig made MTV’s list of hot Australian ‘filmmakers to watch’ and Teenage Kicks was billed as one not to be missed by Empire Magazine. A graduate of the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS), Craig is currently developing several new feature projects.
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