Film festival season is in full swing across Australia, with the Sydney Film Festival just weeks away. For audiences, it’s often the first glimpse at the Australian films likely to generate the most buzz over the next 12 months.

This year’s program features an impressive lineup of local feature films, including Yesterday Island, one of the most entertaining and enjoyable Australian films I’ve seen in years. Imagine The Lonely Spirits Variety Hour with a hint of Wes Anderson, and you’re somewhere close to its intoxicating tone.

Driven by a diverse ensemble cast delivering some of the strongest performances seen in recent Australian cinema, everyone is likely to walk away with their own interpretation of the film’s subtext. For me, as a forty-something male, it was the film’s exploration of monotony and stagnation that hit hardest. If I were still writing reviews, my critic’s quote would read something like this: “★★★★½. Brilliant, quirky and hilarious. Yesterday Island hits like a midlife parable wrapped in a pile of bricks.”

The film follows failed novelist Amos (Ivan Aristeguieta), who agrees to look after his friend Dusty’s (Francis Greenslade) remote island research station for a single day, hoping the solitude might finally break his writer’s block.

But when Dusty fails to return, Amos discovers he has been deliberately trapped inside a bizarre time loop. What unfolds is a dark comedy about second chances, petty revenge and, ultimately, the importance of forgiveness. Yesterday Island is produced by Melanie Ansley, and co-stars Florence Noble and David Fane alongside Aristeguieta and Greenslade.

Yesterday Island is written and directed by Canberra-born VCA alumnus Sam Voutas. The film marks the filmmaker’s first Australian feature following a successful run making films overseas, including Red Light Revolution and King of Peking, both produced in Beijing.

Yesterday Island will screen at the Sydney Film Festival from Saturday, 6 June. Details here.

“I just want to be out there making films. For me, it’s just wonderful to have done that. I’m just so happy.”

Interview by Matthew Eeles

You were born in Canberra. Is that where filmmaking began for you?

My years in Canberra were more about going to primary school. Did it influence my filmmaking? I’d say my filmmaking was really influenced by going to the VCA in Melbourne in the late ’90s. I had originally intended to study theatre, but I had a film lecturer in a side class who introduced us to three movies: Go Fish, Clerks and El Mariachi. I remember thinking, “Oh my God, you can make independent films that play at top festivals for $2,000. I’m not going to do theatre.” And it changed my life. Little did I know that that little window where you could do $2,000 films and reach that level was a very short little period of film history.

Other than the budget, what was it about a film like Clerks that really stood out for you?

It was the access that a film like that had to an audience. That was the first thing that I realised because, remember, this was the time when DV and DV cameras were really new. So really, the idea that you could just go and buy a consumer camera and go and shoot a film with your friends and potentially reach hundreds of thousands of people was so exciting. We all had access to playing in that sandpit.

What other films were you watching at that time?

Well, back then, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image had this wonderful library system where you could order any art house movie that they had in stock, and they would mail a video to your local library. I would just go and ask for anything that I could get my hands on, European, Asian, lots of old classics. And it was also a free service that was offered, and they would mail it all across Victoria. So it was really this free education for me to try to access stuff that didn’t really have distribution in Australia.

What was the extent of your education?

I did a Bachelor of Creative Arts at the Victorian College of the Arts.

Would you say that you learnt more from VCA, or more from watching films themselves?

To be honest, being on set is where you learn the most. It’s like riding a bicycle. You can do as much theory as you want. Sooner or later, you just have to get on the bike and do it. I was lucky in that, in my early 20s, I moved to China and started working in the Chinese film industry, and ended up spending a lot of time on sets. And that’s where I picked up a lot of the little things. It’s just like riding a bicycle. You spend long enough riding a bicycle, you slowly start to learn how to ride it better and faster.

Were you making short films before moving into features, or was The Last Breadbox feature film the beginning for you?

I made a short film at uni that we shot on 8mm in Melbourne. We edited it on a Steenbeck. This is back when you were just using sticky tape to edit. That film played at Melbourne Fringe and another international film festival. I ended up selling that to SBS back in the ’90s. SBS used to play short films late at night.

Yes, on Eat Carpet.

That’s right! You remember?

I do. I loved Eat Carpet!

So that’s where I started. Then I realised that art is important, but also that I want to turn this into a commercially successful enterprise. And one thing that I’ve always resisted with short films is that, unless you’re getting government money to make them, you’re actually going to lose your money. At least when you’re making features, and so far this has worked for me anyway, you’re not losing money.

I know I have many readers who are filmmakers who would probably choke on their cornflakes reading that.

[Laughs]. So I made three feature films, including Yesterday Island, which hopefully, knock on wood, we’ll turn a profit on. But with Red Light Revolution, we’re in the black on that one. And King of Peking had a global stream of sales that did well for us and helped make Yesterday Island.

Tell me about working in China. Did you desire a more internationally recognised career over a local one?

I was making corporate videos in Melbourne. They were really fun and interesting, but at the same time, I wanted to get more TV work. And at that time, television work was really opening up in China. This was in the early 2000s. There were artists from all over the world who were doing experimental art, or anything they could within the arts. So that was a great place to cut my teeth at that time.

Were you keeping your eye on the industry there for opportunities? How were you made aware of this?

I lived in China in the ’80s, so I spoke some Chinese. So China seemed like a natural place to try to get away from just making corporate videos. Once you start doing corporate videos, one client leads to the next client over and over again. As great as it is to do corporate videos, I wanted to do something a little bit more creatively challenging.

You’ve written most of the films you’ve made. Is it your preference to write and direct your own films, or are you open to directing scripts written by other people?

I’m totally open to directing other people’s scripts. A lot of my current day job is writing scripts for other people. A production company might come to me and say, “We’ve got this idea for this. Can we hire you to write it? You won’t be directing it.” And then I just go off and do that as a gig. And I really enjoy that as well. And sometimes it’s actually less pressure than writing, directing and trying to put a whole project together myself because, in that regard, you can just focus on making the story the best possible story you can and hand it over to the production company.

You acted in your short film, Crash Test. Did you want to be an actor at any point?

The reason I acted in that film was because we were in that indie world, similar to Clerks, where everyone involved had to take on different roles, which meant that I played a character in the film. I’ve actually done a lot of acting over the years. I was trying to follow the John Cassavetes model while I was in China, in that he was taking money that he was earning from acting and putting it into independent films. So there’s a period in my 20s and 30s where, in China, I was almost working full-time as an actor because, at that time, if you were a foreigner who could speak Chinese, you could act in movies and TV. So I would just take on anything and then go and use that salary to try to make an independent film.

Without sounding too intrusive, I’d love to know more about your professional partnership with producer Melanie Ansley, who you’ve made a lot of your films with, including Yesterday Island.

[Laughs]. So, Melanie is my wife.

I thought so, but I didn’t want to assume.

Well, as you know, trust is so important when it comes to production partners. So yes, Melanie and I have worked together on many films, which made making our first feature in Australia together so much better. It was great. In many ways, we had to learn so much too because we had shot films overseas for so long, and for Mel to be able to produce an Australian feature film is a great achievement for her.

Before I ask you about Yesterday Island, I want to know if you’re a fan of the time-loop genre in general, or did it just fit here?

I love time-loop movies as a genre, and as a general filmgoer. One challenge that I really thought about heading into Yesterday Island was that, because it’s such a popular genre now, I really had to flip this on its head to make it work. Otherwise, there’s no point in doing it. You’ve just basically wasted three months or three years of your life to just rehash something that everybody’s going to say, “Yeah, we’ve been there, done that.” So a big part of this process was figuring out how to make this unique and different enough from everything that’s come before it. I don’t know if I succeeded, but I certainly tried.

In my opinion, you’ve succeeded. How did this idea come about?

Well, any movie idea starts somewhere, and it’s almost like water that forms a pond. It started as we were coming out of the pandemic. Melanie and I had worked on a couple of projects, and we’d made King of Peking, which we had sold to the streamers, and then we said, “Okay, let’s go and move on to something bigger.” And, as it did with all filmmakers, the pandemic knocked all of our projects out of production. Just making anything during the pandemic was almost close to impossible. Coming out of the pandemic, I really wanted to get back behind the camera, having fun again in the sandpit, as we were saying, and then thinking, “Well, how do we do this?” I wanted to try to make something that was very contained. From there, the challenge was to make something compelling enough to keep an audience interested.

Was it just Melanie who you were bouncing your ideas off at the time?

Certainly Melanie, and I have a small group of friends that I’ve worked with on different films over the years who I really trust. So I’d send it to them and I’d get their feedback, which went on all the way through to post. Even when I’m in the edit, I’d show it to them and say, “Hey, how’s this working?” and get their response. I’m a really strong proponent of filmmaking being a team sport and that you’ve got to be a good listener first and foremost.

I’m a fan of the time-loop genre when it’s done right. The Infinite Man is a criminally underrated standout for me. But what I loved about Yesterday Island is that the time-loop aspect came second to the story, themes and subtext that you genuinely wanted to explore here. Is that an accurate observation?

It’s a very accurate observation. For me, character and the conflict of the characters with different agendas always comes first. When I made Red Light Revolution, it was a sex shop comedy, but actually the sex shop comedy was the umbrella that it came under, and that’s similar to Yesterday Island. Yes, it’s a time-loop film, but you don’t actually have to like sci-fi to enjoy it because it’s about character, and it’s about people with grievances who are against each other. To me, the best sci-fi movies are always about something that’s not just sci-fi.

Yesterday Island was particularly hard-hitting for me as a male in my early 40s whose life can feel a little monotonous at times, like everyone’s can. Was that what you were mostly trying to put forward with this film?

Yes, but not just midlife, it’s also about stagnation in general. One inspiration that I had for this was that, in my thirties, following that period of working in China, I’d been in the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and I thought that would be a great time to move to LA. Melanie had something that she was working on in LA, but I actually had nothing going on and just started working jobs that had nothing to do with film. I started to experience this long feeling of stagnation that nothing was changing. And I think that fed into the really early seeds of Yesterday Island.

You’ve travelled a lot throughout your life, and this film features a very multicultural cast. Is there an immigration subtext running through Yesterday Island?

Oh, that’s very interesting. I hadn’t really thought about it. I mean, in terms of the casting, I know that it’s a very diverse cast of Australians and New Zealanders who are from all different backgrounds. It wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision. I think when you’re walking outside in Melbourne or Sydney, everybody’s from everywhere, so it’s just a natural thing to do.

I mention it because around two thirds through Yesterday Island, it struck me that these people from all different backgrounds were stuck on this island, in very uncomfortable conditions, and everyone wanted to escape and get on with their lives.

That’s true. But for me, it was more about the vendettas towards each other. In terms of casting, for example, Ivan Aristeguieta, who plays Amos, the lead, when I first showed him the script, Amos wasn’t a Venezuelan character. It was only later on, as we were getting closer to production, that his Venezuelan background was introduced. His own background helped feed the story.

Before I ask you about your main cast members, I want to take a moment to appreciate Francis Greenslade. He doesn’t make a lot of feature films, but when he does pop up, I’m always reminded of what a great actor he is. What did you take away from your time with Francis?

I’m just so happy that he agreed to be in the movie. As you said, he’s very selective about the films that he makes, and the fact that he agreed to play one of the lead support actors in our film was incredible. And as you know, he’s very important to the whole structure of this film. He’s just a very natural actor, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s Warsaw or Cleveland, the audience loves him.

It sounds like you really wanted Francis for this role.

That role was presented to Francis Greenslade and nobody else.

Why Francis?

He’s very natural and he never comes across as though he’s acting. He’s just in the moment, which sounds like it’s a very easy thing to do, but it’s actually incredibly hard. I went through every casting agency that I could find in Australia and New Zealand, going through every single person who was on their books and just trying to find people who had those qualities where you’re no longer performing, you’re in character and you’re in the scene.

What made Ivan Aristeguieta and Florence Noble so right for their respective roles?

I think they’re brilliant. I’m glad you think so too. One technique that I like to use is to cast by looking at people’s interviews, not just their performances. Making a movie is a highly intense process, and you’re going to be working with people in the trenches for a long time. So you want to not only know if you’ll be able to work with them, but you also want to know what that person is really like. So Ivan just really impressed me with his interviews, and I sort of felt that there was something naturally interesting about him as a person that maybe doesn’t feature in his stand-up, but could actually feed into a feature film in a way that hadn’t been done before. And to be honest, his performance here is very subtle, very controlled, and very focused. And that’s the same with Florence, to be honest. I’m just so glad they both said yes, and with Florence, the film relies so much on her ability to deliver her lines in such a specific way. She nails it.

When you say interviews, you mean press interviews?

That’s right. You really do get another side to that individual, and you get to see a little bit of who they are as a person because, ultimately, who you are as a person feeds the kind of character that you’ll be portraying later.

There’s a board game featured prominently throughout Yesterday Island called Labors of Hercules, and Hercules is also mentioned during the opening monologue of the film. What’s the significance of Hercules to you and to this film?

Well, it’s set on this supernatural island in the far south of Australia, on one of Australia’s subantarctic islands. And because there is this weird time-loop thing going on, we do find out later that there is a board game element to it. Ivan actually described this film as being Jumanji meets Groundhog Day. [Laughs]. Greek mythology has always been really interesting to me, not just because of having a Greek background, but also because, in ancient Greek mythology, everyone has an ulterior motive and they’re thinking of ways to trick each other. And Labor of Hercules, which features in this movie, showcases an element of that trickery.

Did you create this board game yourself?

Yes. It’s completely made up. Our production designer, Wei Guo, had to design a game completely from scratch with the different stops that your pieces land on, and we had to come up with the rules. So we now have a board game that we’ve designed with rules that exist outside of this world.

Have you played it?

We played it in pre-production because I had to sit there with the production designer and say, “Okay, what happens here?” And we’d come up with the rules. Who knows, if the film does well, we can release a new board game.

You’ve made this unique choice to repeat the film’s opening credits at the beginning of each loop, which is actually quite beautiful. Was this a creative decision made in the edit, or was it written into the script?

It was written into the script that it’s repeated. When you’re making an independent film, you don’t have a lot of money. The only thing you really have is time in prep to make it as smart and compelling as possible. So the whole film was essentially shot-listed from the very beginning so that I would know exactly when this shot that we’re going to see would appear in minute two, and in minute 42 and minute 72, et cetera. And so it was very, very controlled in that regard.

Were you ever worried that it may frustrate the audience?

It all comes back to this idea that if you’re going to do a genre that’s widely recognised, you have to do something different. You have to do something that has not been done before within that genre. I hadn’t seen a time-loop movie yet that repeats credits. I thought there’s a real playfulness to that. And so it was very much tied to the whole concept from the very beginning as I was writing the screenplay, that this was going to be worked into it. It really helped us in terms of just getting the film across the line too because, as you know, setups cost money, and if you can repeat shots and make it organically work so it’s actually happening in the movie for an organic reason, then you’re getting your film across the line. And it’s fresh.

Can you break down some of the film’s magic for us? I’ve been caught out in the past being fooled by set pieces that I’ve thought were real locations, or shot on location at least. Was the interior of this cabin built into the same location as the exterior shots, or was this built on a set?

[Laughs]. I’m glad you asked that question, and that we’ve successfully pulled off the illusion. The interiors are all shot in-studio in Melbourne. I knew from the beginning that night shoots in remote locations are logistically always problematic. We were in-studio for anything that’s indoors inside the research station. And as you would have guessed, both research stations are actually the same location. We just changed the wallpaper. The exteriors are in a more remote location. We essentially shot all of our interiors first, followed by our exteriors.

As a filmmaker, is it more enjoyable to shoot exteriors on location, or on a set in a studio?

They’re very different. So for me, particularly on this movie, a lot of the heavy lifting that the actors have to do in terms of the heavy scenes where there’s conflict and dialogue, it’s easier to do that in the studio because everybody can just focus. You’re not worried about the wind, you’re not worried about rain, you’re not worried that it’s 3:00 AM and everybody has to get home. You can shoot a scene that’s set at 2:00 AM in the morning, and all everybody’s caring about is emotions. That’s something that a studio gives you that being out in the elements doesn’t. On the flip side, you can have scenes where being out in the elements adds so much to a scene. So I think both options bring different things to the cake that is being baked.

I know that this is a cliché question, but were there any particular challenges shooting outdoors?

One of the biggest challenges that I hadn’t prepared for when shooting in rural Australia was the flies. And it’s something I was thinking about because a lot of Aussie films shoot in rural locations. I don’t know if it’s because their post-production budgets are so high that they can digitally remove the flies. There were a lot of flies for us, and it interrupted a lot of our shots. The actors started to become disturbed by it too. You can spray stuff, but it doesn’t really work. So that was probably the more Herculean challenge that we faced.

Have you seen Warwick Thornton’s new film Wolfram?

No, I have not. Are there a lot of flies in it?

Oh, the flies are like the lead actors in that film. When the AACTA Awards nominations roll around, I’m expecting the flies to be nominated for Best Ensemble Performance.

[Laughs]. Interesting. Interesting. In a way, you have to work it in at the end of the day. There’s the Guy Pearce meat pie Western which Nick Cave wrote from 20 years ago too.

The Proposition.

Yes, The Proposition. That’s it. The flies are a character in that film as well. But in our situation, we’ve set this film in the Australian subantarctic region, where no one really expects to see flies.

I watched an incredibly impressive short film recently called A Stable for Horses, directed by Davie Paterson and shot by your Yesterday Island DoP, Alexander Naughton. Although there are some stylistic similarities between Alexander’s work here and A Stable for Horses, they’re very different-looking films. It got me thinking about your approach to working with a cinematographer, and how much of your film’s look is based on your guidance compared to Alexander’s natural and organic style and technique?

As I said, filmmaking must be a team sport. Every feature film you make is going to be slightly different. I loved looking at Alex’s portfolio of work. When I contacted him, he’d just landed in the country. I had a meeting with him, and we really hit it off during our meeting. In terms of the shot selection, I’d just text him ideas and say, “How about this movie reference?” And he’d say, “Oh yeah, that sounds like a good one.” And we basically had several days of just sitting there going through every single shot. One thing that really helped us in terms of shot composition was that, because we were building this research station, which features domes, we were able to go into it while we were in pre-production and really plan our shots and look through the camera days before the actors arrived, when we didn’t have the lights. But having access to the set early was really helpful for us. It was a joy working with Alexander Naughton.

Personally, I’d compare the humour and the style of this film to Platon Theodoris’ The Lonely Spirits Variety Hour, but I have a feeling that a lot of people are going to compare Yesterday Island to the films of Wes Anderson. How would that sit with you?

Look, if we’re going to be compared to Wes Anderson, I’m fine with that.

Did you reference his films?

I enjoy his films. I think they’re great. While I was in pre-production, I was very aware that we didn’t want to make this too Wes Anderson-esque. So, for example, our characters have beanies, and if you do beanies, especially red beanies, you’re in trouble because Wes Anderson owns red beanies. [Laughs]. So there are certain aesthetic things that he owns now. So that’s the world, and that’s the way it is with art. I think he’s an inspiring director, but we’ve very much tried to create our own thing with this movie, which hopefully we’ve done.

You certainly have. Has making Yesterday Island altered your approach to filmmaking in any way, and how you make films going forward? Is there anything you’d do the same, or differently?

Well, first off, it was just really great to finally make an Australian feature that’s in the English language and it’s playing well, essentially because during the pandemic, we couldn’t make movies. I really wanted to get that done and dusted and say, “Hey, I can do this.” So that’s a huge weight off my shoulders, to be honest with you. I just want to be out there making films. For me, it’s just wonderful to have done that. Audiences can decide for themselves if they enjoy it or not. But for me, it ticked that box. I’m just so happy.

Yesterday Island will screen at the Sydney Film Festival from Saturday, 6 June. Details here.

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