Hunt Angels

The 1930s. The depression has also hit Sydney, Australia. Archive footage, projected on the skyline of the city, fills the horizon until Rupert Kathner appears on screen and announces that this film is about him. He wants to be the first one on screen, before others can tell lies about him.
This ironic introduction is the start of Hunt Angels, a feature film in which digitally altered archive footage (moving images and photographs), staged and historic film scenes are combined inventively with regular feature images. Together, these heterogeneous visual elements sketch a fictional portrait of the ‘Bonnie and Clyde of the Australian film business’: Rupert Kathner, conman, dreamer and director, and his beloved Alma Brooks, former secretary and later camerawoman, who tried to conquer a place in the Australian film industry in the 1930s. Kathner and Brooks went to all ends to realise their dream. Even though they only have a modest place in film history in the end, the road to their temporary fame was paved with strange turns, perseverance and confrontations with both Hollywood and the police. On the run from the law, they make the most of every opportunity to shape reality the way they wanted it. Convincingly portrayed by actors, both film makers get a leading role in a spectacularly designed biographical feature with documentary elements. (EH)