ELAGABALUS
Film - Program 10 Filmfest 2020

ELAGABALUS

Directed by Xanthe Dobbie

Info

Director: Xanthe Dobbie
Section: Program 10
Country: Australia
Year: 2020
Language: English
Version: Original version
Cast: Nyx Calder, Helen Stuart, Alex Stylianou, Emily Trueman
18+ (no age rating)

Also in this program

Logline

ELAGABALUS

Genderqueer Roman emperor Elagabalus lives in constant excess, because a prophecy foretells a terrible end. Elagabalus’s controlling mother is dismayed when the emperor falls in love with a charioteer. But when jealousy drives the emperor to become more and more brutal and sadistic, the lover and the mother have to join forces. Narrated in three acts, ELAGABALUS borrows from structures and characters from classical theater. This is paired with a glittering pink pictorial aesthetic and wonderfully exaggerated music reminiscent of the synthesizer sound of the 1980s.



  • Filmschool: Australian Film, Television and Radio School

  • Duration: 17 Min.

Meet the director

ELAGABALUS

Xanthe Dobbie

Xanthe Dobbie is a genderqueer new-media artist and filmmaker from Australia whose work aims to capture the experience of post-Internet contemporaneity as reflected through feminism, art history, iconography, sex, and queer culture. After studying art at RMIT University in Melbourne, Dobbie recently completed a master’s degree in film editing at AFTRS in Sydney, which included the artist’s debut film, ELAGABALUS.

Credits

Screenplay: Samuel Herriman
Director of Photography: Sidat de Silva
Film Editor: Xanthe Dobbie
Composer: Jorde Heys
Production Designer: Lily Bennet, Max Boutwell Draper
Costume Design: William Tran
Sound: Tahira Donohoe-Bales
Sound design: Rowan Yeomans
Make-up artist: Jade Diaz
Producer: Alexis Talbot-Smith
Production Company: Australian Film Television and Radio School