Montgomery plays Jack, a young man attending the funeral of his estranged mother, Elizabeth, and meeting her wife, Jill (Krieps), for the first time. They awkwardly bond over their mutual loss.<\/p>\n
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Dacre Montgomery and Vicky Krieps play strangers forced together by the death of a shared loved one. (Supplied: MIFF)<\/p>\n
But the spirit of Elizabeth is an all-pervasive cloud hanging pendulously over them, so much so that she appears to hold sway, which sees Montgomery and Krieps adopting dual roles as the dead woman’s ghost insidiously assumes control of their bodies.<\/p>\n
There’s a hint of Wuthering Heights’s eeriness to this frightening scenario, but if it looks like an icy chill has sunk into Montgomery’s bones, it’s not acting.<\/p>\n
“I’m happy to work 17 hours a day, seven days a week, it doesn’t bother me at all, but this shoot was incredibly cold,” Montgomery says, laughing.<\/p>\n
“It was the tail end of June, and it was freezing with hoarfrost.”<\/p>\n
It was so cold that the battery fluid inside Arrernte and Kalkadoon cinematographer Tyson Perkins’s (nephew of director Rachel Perkins) camera froze, mid-take.<\/p>\n
“So did the tip of my pen,” Montgomery says. “But that cold, and the isolation with all of the crew away from their families, transfers to the screen in a very knowing way.”<\/p>\n
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Montgomery found shooting on location in New Zealand beautiful and finger-numbing. (Supplied: MIFF)<\/p>\n
Picture perfect<\/p>\n
Went Up the Hill’s breathtaking backdrop is part of New Zealand-born, Sydney-based filmmaker Van Grinsven’s story.<\/p>\n
“I grew up on the road,” he says. “My parents are musicians, and we’d drive up and down a lot, with memories of that particular spot coming into my head, and the idea of two people in a glass-walled room standing with a coffin between them.”<\/p>\n
That’s how the creative spark of Van Grinsven’s films ignites. “It’s always a really visual thing,” he says.<\/p>\n
His debut feature, the stylishly queer erotic thriller Sequin in a Blue Room, was the same.<\/p>\n
“It was a young guy standing on the street, looking up at an apartment building with the room glowing blue,” Van Grinsven says.<\/p>\n
It was shot on a micro-budget while he was still at film school, then selected to debut at the Sydney Film Festival. The director was inspired by New Queer Cinema heroes, including Gus Van Sant, Gregg Araki and Todd Haynes.<\/p>\n
“They all made their first features with no permission and no money,” he says.<\/p>\n
Sequin in a Blue Room was the calling card that attracted the attention of super-producers Samantha Jennings and Kristina Ceyton of Causeway Films, the dynamic duo behind brilliant films including Of an Age, The Babadook and Talk to Me.<\/p>\n
“They are two of the best,” Van Grinsven says. “It’s been an incredible experience, with my co-writer Jory Anast, developing the film and learning from them.”<\/p>\n