Winner of Australian Director’s Guild and Cannes Lions Young Director awards Eddy Bell’s Grey Bull is a film with a distinct story and a strong self-belief. Featuring a captivating lead performance from debutant Mayik Deng, Bell’s narrative takes us on an eye-opening cultural journey as we follow South Sudanese Refugee Martin as he struggles to adapt to his new life in Australia.

“I wanted to make a modern day Ned Kelly story”

At a time when migration is a hot-topic worldwide, it’s refreshing to be presented with a story orbiting around an immigrant that truly feels like it’s presenting a positive view of one such journey. Essentially a story about leaving your past behind so you can focus on your future, Grey Bull is a film which provokes its audience into adopting the viewpoint of its main character and ask some important questions about emigration.

Though a film very much of its time, the roots of Bell’s story hark back to the 1800s when another newcomer to Australian shores was writing himself into the history books. “The first kernel of an idea was that I wanted to make a modern day Ned Kelly story” the director reveals in conversation with Short of the Week. “Ned Kelly was a famous Australian Bush Ranger and was largely about immigration. The Irish were the new kids on the block at the time and Ned Kelly was persecuted because he was an Irish immigrant. Whilst studying in Melbourne the newest migrant group that people were worried about was the South Sudanese. From that jumping off point I started researching the South Sudanese cattle culture and from there the story of Grey Bull started to take shape. The film was continually re written throughout the casting process as South Sudanese families told me their stories”.

Grey Bull features some solid production, but it’s the strength of the story and the performances that really caught the eye of the team here at Short of the Week and it’s easy to see why director Bell won acclaim for such an assured film. Having just completed another short called I’m Banksy and with two feature scripts in development, we’re excited to see whether Bell can develop on the excellent filmmaking on show here.