Production underway in Coober Pedy on Ivan Sen’s desert noir Limbo starring Simon Baker

Simon Baker in Limbo.

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Production is underway in South Australia’s iconic underground mining town of Coober Pedy on new feature film Limbo from Australian auteur Ivan Sen (Mystery Road, Goldstone, Loveland), produced by Bunya Productions (Sweet Country, Mystery Road: Origin, True Colours).

Limbo stars AACTA Award-winning, Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated actor Simon Baker (Breath, Blaze, The Mentalist, High Ground), with Rob Collins (The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson, Firebite), South Australian actor Natasha Wanganeen (Rabbit Proof Fence, Firebite) and Nicholas Hope (Bad Boy Bubby, The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson).

Baker stars as Travis Hurley, a detective who arrives in a small Australian outback town to investigate a 20-year-old unsolved murder of a local Aboriginal girl. Forming bonds with the victim’s fractured family, Travis unravels a series of hard truths, highlighting the complexities of loss and injustice experienced by First Nations Australians.

Limbo will be the seventh feature from Ivan Sen, following the success of his 2022 sci-fi film Loveland and celebrated outback mysteries Goldstone and Mystery Road (now a popular ABC series).

Ivan Sen described Limbo as a “desert noir” or “neo western”, setting the dark, foreboding whodunnit against the backdrop of the rugged Australian desert.

“Limbo is a quest for truth — an intimate study in intergenerational trauma and its ongoing post-colonial effects on Indigenous Australia,” said Sen.

“The world of Limbo is both nostalgic and authentic, and Simon Baker is such a versatile and disciplined performer, who just exudes Hurley’s clashing stoicism and vulnerability that is simply electric on screen.”

Renowned for writing, directing, editing, handling cinematography and scoring his own films, Sen is also a co-producer on Limbo, alongside Bunya Productions’ David Jowsey and Greer Simpkin (Mystery Road Origin, The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson, High Ground, Sweet Country) and Rachel Higgins (Apprentice, Red Hill).

Limbo is a Bunya Productions film presented by the ABC and Screen Queensland in association with Windalong Films and the South Australian Film Corporation. The film will be distributed by Dark Matter Distribution.