Interview: "I'm interested in stories of ordinary people": Australian director at Venice Festival

"I'm interested in all sort of stories but I always gravitate towards the ordinary persons within that story," Australian movie director Sue Brooks told Xinhua.

"Then one of my favorite filmmakers is the Indian Satyajit Ray and I just love the stories of the ordinary families coming and going," Brooks explained to Xinhua during an exclusive interview on her movie Looking for Grace in competition at the ongoing Venice Film Festival 2015.

Brooks directed and co-produced Japanese Story screened in the Official selection at Cannes Film Festival and won the International Federation of Film Critics FIPRESCI award.

Looking for Grace is a family road movie about a teenage girl (Grace) escaping with a big sum of money she steels from home. Using humor to calm down the tension, Brooks plays with different flashbacks introducing every character involved and putting a light on their underground contradictions starting from the mother and father of the girl.

In a silent wide Australian landscape, every character seems to search something deep inside themselves.

The first idea came to Brooks when in a plane red a newspaper article about a teenage girl who had stolen some money from her father, which were in a safe.

"That article I thought that was a good starting point for a film, then I initiated writing the script and the characters were starting coming and telling me their own stories," she explained.

Asked about the multiple flashbacks she used in the movie, Brooks explained that she likes that you have a single moment in life that depending on where you are in that moment everybody has a different point of view of it, so even the moment when they found the escaped girl everybody has a quite different feeling.

Brooks spoke also about how she works on set.

She said "I think I'm very clear about what I want and my parameters but then after that I give them a lot of space to work and create. I like when actors can do their best and when they can create the character by themselves."

In a film festival dominated by violence, with apparently no comedies, Brooks uses humor in her movie and explains, "It's just how I see life, people are funny."

"I love comedies and the fact that people is obsessed by silly little things; I love when people laugh because they recognize something about themselves," said the director.

About comedies Brooks is still positive about this genre, according to her, comedies are still coming along successfully and some of them are fabulous like Bridesmaids (2011) or subtitle films like Nebraska (2013).

"It's good to laugh, it's good for us," She said.

Asked about the relations between China and Australia, Brooks underlined that the bilateral relations are now very interesting and very close.

"There was one film that we were very keen to make in China, it was about an ordinary Australian man who tried to take his business to China but for him China was so big and confusing. He was a fish out of water; I would love to make that film because it would be funny," she said. Endit