Emile Sherman is the first Australian producer to win an Oscar, for 2010’s acclaimed The King’s Speech. The head of See-Saw films has also produced an eclectic range of films such as The Kings of Mykonos: Wog Boy 2 (2010), Disgrace (2009), $9.99 (2009) and Candy (2006).
Sherman’s new project is Oranges and Sunshine (2010). An official UK-Australia co-production, it is based on the book by social worker Margaret Humphreys, who discovered a little-known child migrant scheme that saw thousands of disadvantaged British minors shipped off to Australia, without the consent of their parents.
Miguel Gonzalez spoke with Sherman about Oranges and Sunshine (2010), as well as his Academy Award win.
How did you become involved in Oranges and Sunshine?
Producer Camilla Bray, director Jim Loach and writer Rona Munro had been working together on this project for a while at Sixteen Films, Ken Loach’s company. It’s a natural co-production and they needed to find an Australian to team up with. They had not worked in Australia before, so a big part of my role was to put together some heads of department and crew they could work with, including editor Dany Cooper and production designer Melinda Doring. I also raised the finance from Australia and I put forward the people I thought would work in the cast, as well as where to shoot the film.
Why did you decide to shoot in Adelaide, doubling for 1980s Perth?
Perth has changed quite a bit since the ’80s, and it wasn’t big cityscapes we were looking for. Perth doesn’t have the filmmaking infrastructure that Adelaide has; it’s a great place to film because the South Australian Film Corporation is very supportive, and the state had all the locations we needed, including that desert kind of look.
How did you approach the fact that this is director Jim Loach’s first feature, that all of his experience was on television?
In England more so than Australia, many feature directors come from television. I remember being in London, putting together The King’s Speech (2010) at the same time as Oranges and Sunshine (2010), and looking at some of Jim’s work before we made any commitments. He really handles actors and performances beautifully and understatedly; he understands the nuances of drama and we always felt that we were in really good hands with a director who was going to bring out great performances and work well with the actors. Emily Watson, Hugo Weaving and David Wenham all said to me individually, 'I want to work again with Jim in the future; he’s a really wonderful director to work with’.
Jim is a gentle person and the whole atmosphere surrounding the project was perfect to tell a meaningful story. The film has an understated quality to it. It would have been easy to be very melodramatic due to the subject matter, but the final result is quite the opposite of that.
Did you ever think the official apology from both the British and Australian Prime Ministers would make your film so timely?
There are lots of films based on true stories, so you never know… we just went ahead and made it. We knew it was a timely film; Margaret Humphreys had been campaigning for the apology for many years, and it happened right in the middle of the shoot. There are tens of thousands of people around the world who have been affected by this child migrant scheme, and it was fantastic to see the effect of these developments on people and the symbolic importance of recognising the past and offering an apology. It transformed their past, which they didn’t have anyone to share with, into something real, and allowed them to move on as much as possible.
Have there been any negative reactions to the film, from those who support the religious organisations that participated in the child migrant scheme?
There are differing opinions and people have different experiences over what happened. All this film is trying to do is to be faithful to Margaret, to her journey, to the book that she wrote and to the experiences she’s been part of. That’s not to say that it represents every child migrant’s experience, but certainly this is based on the truth of her experience and the people she was touching.
How did it feel to win the Oscar?
I was very proud to be able to make a film that reached so many people, which actually had an Australian lead character in it. Lots of people from school, university, or that I met here or there, made contact, and I’ve received so much support from the industry, friends, family and the community at large.
The King’s Speech has made more than U$400 million worldwide, so is money still an issue for your company See-Saw Films?
No money has come through to us yet. It’s a notoriously difficult industry to collect money in; we’ve got someone specifically to help with collections and there are so many people that we’re reporting on behalf of, such as some of the actors, writers, director and other participants. It’s a big job; there’s a lot of interested parties in The King’s Speech (2010) and we have to administer that on their behalf as well as on our behalf, and it’s a huge learning experience.
I don’t really want to count any chickens before they hatch. At the moment, there’s no extra money and we’re hoping that there will be some, but we haven’t really thought much further than trying to monitor the process over the next year, as distributors will start reporting to us.
Oranges and Sunshine is released in Australia on 9 June.
Still from Oranges and Sunshine: Len (David Wenham) shows Margaret (Emily Watson) Bindoon where he grew up. ©Matt Nettheim. Courtesy image.net.
