During a busy day of TV guest spots, Balibo director – Robert Connolly – was kind enough to have a chat with Flicks. Even better, he let us conduct the questioning in his tres swanky Heritage Hotel suite. There, he let us in on the behind the scenes tricks, challenges and inspirations that shaped the political thriller he had been working on for six years…
FLICKS: When did you first come across the story of the Balibo five?
ROBERT CONNOLLY: I was at film school when I met Tony Maniaty, the ABC journalist who was over there in ’75 and he told me the story. He was a friend of mine but I never knew what he got up to when he was younger. He told me the story and I couldn’t believe it but also couldn’t believe that it wasn’t more widely known, why five young journalists murdered wasn’t a national story, and that pricked my curiosity.
FLICKS: Did you want to make the film even at that stage?
CONNOLLY: I wanted to but at that stage I’d never made anything. At that stage someone else was working on a version of the film but that fell over. It was years later that Anthony Lapaglia, who I’d worked with before, came to me to me with the book it was based on and I couldn’t believe the project had come back to me. I love films like The Killing Fields and Salvador , films about war correspondents so I was lucky it came back to me.
FLICKS: How intensive was pre-production?
CONNOLLY: The funding itself took two years and the drafts went through different permutations over three years. It was really complicated because we had to shoot in East Timor and I remember one investor saying ‘You shouldn’t do it’ but I told them I’d been there and it was really safe. The next day the president Jose Ramos-Horta had an assassination attempt. It was impossible to insure but I think the film would’ve lacked courage if we didn’t go there.
FLICKS: What were the challenges and rewards of shooting on location in East Timor?
CONNOLLY: The most moving experience of my directing career was going to Balibo and shooting in exactly the same places as where these guys shot footage they lost their lives for. The Timorese general who fought in the resistance turned up with a hundred of his soldiers, which was amazing. He showed us how it happened and his soldiers had on screen roles, it was cool because moments like that don’t come along very often.
FLICKS: Why did you shoot scenes chronologically?
CONNOLLY: I think for actors who have to go on a journey with these characters they’re playing to their death, it’s the best way. I had them in costume from the moment they arrived in Timor. I was trying to get the actors into that headspace and I don’t think we could’ve filmed any scenes of the deaths any earlier and the actors found it quite moving. The actors developed relationships with the families of the people they were playing and they all made phone calls to them in the days leading up to the murder scene, as if they felt they had to ask permission.
FLICKS: How did you get the fanastic seventies film look?
CONNOLLY: I tried to digitally at first, but I ended up taking the same lenses of the time and shooting on old 16mm film like they shot on. It gave it a bit of grain and a different palette. People remember that period through the footage they saw, so I thought ‘why fake it?’ and I think that gave it a sense of authenticity, which is what we were trying to do with a lot of the film, give it a visceral, raw intensity.
FLICKS: How much were events dramatised or kept close to the truth?
CONNOLLY: It was a big question for us. With the Balibo five story I tried to almost exactly to what we already know and recreate footage. With the Roger East story though, I was more able to hypothesise about things. I took a lot of inspiration from the film The Queen, used the historical events as a structure. It was exciting because through cinema you can do that, explore things we don’t know and the human experience.
FLICKS: How was the movie received in Australia?
CONNOLLY: Really good, probably my most successful film. It was contentious in some circles but it got a screening in government house even though my last two had those screenings cancelled because of political issues. I guess it’s easier when events are 35 years ago. The Indonesian government has banned it recently, but that almost creates a demand for it elsewhere.
