‘The Nightingale’ director has insisted the movie is not "gratuitous or exploitative" after claims it had too many scenes of graphic violence and rape.
The 2018 Australian period thriller film was written and directed by Jennifer Kent and follows a young convict woman (Aisling Franciosi) in 1825 Tasmania seeking revenge for a terrible act of violence committed against her family during the frontier war massacres of Indigenous Australians.
Following a mass walkout at early screenings of the movie, the ‘Babadook’ filmmaker has defended her film, alleging that the movie is "not about violence" and revealed that she had been contacted by victims of sexual violence, who had thanked her for the honest portrayal.
In a statement, she said: "I do not believe this would be happening if the film was at all gratuitous or exploitative.
"Whilst ‘The Nightingale’ contains historically accurate depictions of colonial violence and racism towards our Indigenous people, the film is not ‘about’ violence."
Jennifer went on to say that ‘The Nightingale’ had actually toned down some of the violence suffered by Indigenous Australians and contains a historically accurate depiction of the violence suffered by those in Tasmania.
She said: "We’ve made this film in collaboration with Tasmanian Aboriginal elders, and they feel it’s an honest and necessary depiction of their history and a story that needs to be told. I remain enormously proud of the film."
"If we showed what really happened in Tasmania in 1825, no audience could bear it."
The movie debuted at the Sydney Film Festival last week and saw the majority of the sold-out audience at The Ritz in Randwick walk out within the first 20 minutes of the movie.
The Nightingale director defends film against claims of excessive violence
