Private Project

Forging Ned Kelly

Freeman has always idolised the Australian bush-ranging outlaw, Ned Kelly. But it’s not until the town sheriff comes to arrest his mum for a stack of unpaid parking fines that Freeman must decide which side of the law he’s on. Following in the footsteps of his hero Ned, he escapes to the bush where, through a series of strange encounters Freeman unearths the spirit of rebellion deep within the Australian psyche. As the power of Ned Kelly’s spirit overtakes him, Freeman puts on his hand-forged steel armour and heads into battle to save his family and fight for a fair-go.

This highly personal blend of documentary and fiction is a delicately comic celebration of the revolutionary spirit. Taking the form of stylistic collage, Forging Ned Kelly shifts gears continually between narrative fiction, observational doco, found footage film, music video, experimental and personal essay film - it’s formal qualities reflecting the unbounded rebellious energy at the heart of its story. Joyfully self-reflexive it is shot on a combination of 16mm, 8mm and digital formats, while also drawing on archival footage of the world’s first feature film (The Story of the Kelly Gang, 1906) paying homage to filmmaking conventions and celebrating cinema as a revolutionary artform.

  • Freeman Trebilcock
    Director
  • Freeman Trebilcock
    Writer
  • Sonja Milovac
    Producer
    Mr Postman
  • Arun Roberts
    Key Cast
    Pirates of the Caribbean
  • Sophie McPike
    Art Direction
  • Bridget Milesi
    Production Designer
  • Callum
    Sound Design
    Wakeling
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Music Video, Short, Student, Other
  • Genres:
    Comedy, political, observational
  • Runtime:
    16 minutes 47 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    May 28, 2017
  • Production Budget:
    7,700 USD
  • Country of Filming:
    Australia
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    16mm, 8mm, Digitial
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    Yes
Distribution Information
  • Gyaltsen Films
    Country: Australia
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Freeman Trebilcock

Freeman Trebilcock is a director & producer based in Melbourne. His work is playful, rich and unexpected, crossing the boundaries between fact & fiction filmmaking.

At the age of 12 he was ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk. He spent 10 years in the robes, studying on and off with teachers such as His Holiness the Dalai Lama. After completing a degree in Psychology, Freeman started and ran an interfaith youth organisation, and travelled the world speaking and running workshops. In Melbourne he worked with radical celebrity priest Father Bob Maguire to start a interfaith food van called The Fast Supper.

In 2016 Freeman completed a Masters in Film & Television at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne. There his work explored multi-narrative storytelling and the function of self-reflexivity in documentary. This culminated in FORGING NED KELLY, a 16 minute hybrid of documentary & fiction filmmaking techniques. The film is a stylistic collage that creates slippage across a range of genres, all playfully interwoven into a single narrative thread of a a modern-day outlaw, in trouble with the law for refusing too pay his parking fines.

Freeman is currently working as a Producer on THE EMPYREAN, a Screen Australia funded feature film with award-winning writer/director Amiel Courtin-Wilson due for release in 2018. The film is series of beautifully interconnected portraits of young in Oklahoma.

Freeman is in development on a film about Fairy Lore and Old Irish Mythology and will begin research and test-shooting in the UK later this year.

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