A Cold Summer

After his confrontational feature début Terra Nova (selected for the Tiger Award Competition in 1999) the Australian director Paul Middleditch returns this year with the emotional Cold Summer. A study of human nature in which three damaged thirty somethings each grapple with the death of their lovers in their own personal way. A chance encounter in the street between Bobby and Tia leads to a stormy relationship that is mainly based on sex. Tia leads a life filled with self-deceit and lies. She convinces herself and others that she is married and has a career as a jazz singer. A harrowing scene in a jazz club where she climbs on stage to sing, proves that can’t possibly be true. Her childhood friend and opposite Phaedra is an oasis of peace in her hectic life. Phaedra in turn believes in true love, but the confrontation with the harsh world of Tia and Bobby destroys her dreamy view of life. A Cold Summer was motivated by an emotional event with which Paul Middleditch himself had to wrestle. When within one month he met three actors in a similar state, he saw a film before him. He created a mood in which the actors could express their emotions in front of the continuously circling camera. The harsh realism is emphasised by the hand-held images with bright, contrasting colours. Cameraman Steve Arnold only used natural light.