We reported on the weekend that location scouting and pre-production had taken placed for Ivan Sen‘s new Western mystery Mystery Road. Now IF.com.au reports that shooting has begun in Queensland, while Deadline informs us that Hugo Weaving has joined the cast.
Aaron Pedersen will play an Indigenous detective on the hunt for a killer of a girl found under the major highway, and he must thread his way through the race relations of the town and the local drug scenes just to solve the case. Weaving is said to play “a cop with questionable motives”. Ryan Kwanten will play a pig hunter and Jack Thompson is a pastoralist.
The film will also star Tony Barry, Tasma Walton, Damian Walshe-Howling, David Field, Robert Mammone and new faces Trisha Whitton and Siobhan Binge.
Sen spoke to us about the film back in December last year, around the time of the theatrical release of Toomelah. Speaking of the film’s influences, including No Country for Old Men, Sen added: “It will have a very strong Western influence to the film as well. It’s a bit of a cowboy, I call him a cowboy detective”.
The film will be distributed locally through new kids on the block Management of Doubt.
