Driving Miss Daisy director Bruce Beresford begins shooting new film in WA with Luke Bracey, Bryan Brown

Australian filmmaking royalty has arrived in Perth, with Academy Awards best picture winner Bruce Beresford set to start production on his latest film, Overture, this week. Beresford’s hit flick Driving Miss Daisy earned Hollywood’s most prestigious prize in 1990, and Overture marks the first time a director who holds that honour will shoot a movie in WA. “Well, I haven’t watched (Driving Miss Daisy) again, since we made it, but, from the moment I first read the play it was based on, I thought it was just fabulous,” Beresford recalled in an exclusive interview with The West Australian. Beresford said he chose WA as the setting for his new film because he needed a country town that didn’t look like the inner suburbs of Sydney. And York proved to be exactly what the legendary director pictured when he imagined an Australian country town, and, along with Perth, will be a key location during the film’s 25-day shoot. Overture is centred on Stephen Seary, played by Luke Bracey (Hacksaw Ridge), a successful international stage designer who returns to his small Aussie hometown to say goodbye to his dying mother. Written by Beresford and inspired by his own experience of returning to Australia a number of years ago to be with his sick mother, the plot blends drama and comedy as Stephen navigates family responsibilities and past loves. And through it all is his need to get back to Europe for a major opera design contract. At 83, the director is showing few signs of slowing down. “I’ve got a lot of stories to tell,” Beresford admitted. “I’ve still got a whole lot of other films I’d like to make, and I’m sure I won’t live long enough to do them all.” With Beresford behind the camera, there’s no shortage of stars in front of it, including Aussie screen legend Bryan Brown, who the director worked with on Breaker Morant four decades ago, Susie Porter (Mercy Road) and Nicholas Hammond (Once upon a Time in Hollywood). Screenwest chief executive Rikki Lea Bestall said the director of Mao’s Last Dancer, Puberty Blues and, more recently, Ladies in Black, was an “iconic” figure in Australian cinema. “Having a director of Bruce’s calibre filming in our State and providing opportunities for so many WA crew members is yet another fantastic outcome of the WA Production Attraction Incentive,” Bestall said. Overture received major production investment from Screen Australia in association with Screenwest through the WA Production Attraction Incentive and is slated for an Australian theatrical and worldwide release in 2025.