Nov '25 • Visual Arts
Osama's Taxi (2005)
This was my major film project when I attended the now defunct Footscray City Film School, which was housed at Footscray City College. This film, while not being my personal favourite piece of work, was probably my most successful film. It's very rough, it's a student film. Unless you've actually studied filmmaking you might not understand why I had to make some of the decisions I made while making this.
The first thing you need to understand is that Film is a collaborative art form. Often the Producer, Director, and Stars enjoy most of the credit, but every crew member makes an important contribution to the finished product. At the Footscray film school we were lucky enough to be provided with professional film equipment, and our crew was made up of our fellow students. I was working with a budget of about $3000 and much of that was spent on props and salaries for two of the stars who were professional actors. Natalie Eleftheriadis and Shivantha Wijesinha have gone on to have quite successful careers despite not having achieved wide fame. They were and are very talented performers. I decided to take the role of Jacob reluctantly, I would have preferred to have stayed behind the camera, however the actor I initially cast in the role was a bit difficult to work with and due to my deadline, I didn't feel I had time to recast the character. One of my classmates was a Turkish lady and a Muslim and she helped me make the Muslim characters as authentic as possible (thanks Nalan). Casting the character of Osama was very difficult. I approached several actors about the role who were mostly Middle Eastern (I actually approached a Jewish actor too) but none were willing to take the role, mostly due to concern about potential backlash. I have no regrets about casting Shivantha, he's a great actor, but he's Sri Lankan and some critics have accused me of reenforcing the stereotype of the "Indian Taxi Driver".
The film does tend to portray the Australian couple a bit more thoroughly than the Muslim couple, but that was more due to scheduling conflicts rather than favouritism and you also need to consider that at the time I made this, my knowledge of Islamic culture was much more limited than it is at this point in my life. Then there is the issue of all the copyrighted material I used. Sourcing the relevant news footage I wanted to use was virtually impossible. YouTube was officially launched on 14 February 2005 and the very first video (“Me at the zoo”) was uploaded by Karim on 23 April 2005. When I was searching the internet for news content, I wasn't even aware it existed and there wouldn't have been any relevant material available there anyway. With my limited resources, and looming deadline I mostly relied on footage I took from Michael Moores Farenheit 9/11. I like to think he'd approve.
Then there was the issue of the score. The music archives available at my film school were terrible. They mostly consisted of terrible synth pop garbage and were completely incompatible with my vision. So, I ended up using songs which I didn't have the rights to because they had poignant messages which related to the characters stories.
There was a problem with the way copyright law was explained to us at the school. I have a better understanding of it now. Educational Exceptions (Copyright Amendment Act 2006, s200AB, “flexible dealing”) meant that Universities, TAFEs, and film schools could copy, show, and adapt works for teaching purposes. This actually meant a lecturer could screen films, or students could view/copy segments for assignments, presentations, or analysis.But this exception was tightly tied to instruction, not for distribution of new works. The way it was communicated to us was that we could use copyrighted material while we were students but couldn't market the film after our studies were completed.
At private screening the film has always been received very positively. But no festivals were willing to pick it up due to the copyrighted content. While I was in Singapore in early 2006, I had a meeting with an investor who was interested in funding a remake, but his condition was that I rewrote the script to portray Singaporean characters. I didn't really feel I was capable of this, having not been thoroughly exposed to Singaporean culture. They say a film is never really completed, only abandoned. And that was certainly the case with this project. When I finished film school, I had to prioritise making a living, and it limited my ability to pursue my passion for film making. But I still try at every opportunity. So that's the story behind Osama's Taxi. My second IMDB credit.
19:47
1
1 comment
Osama's Taxi (2005)
powered by
skool.com/simmos-art-attack-5135
Art is defined as the expression of human creative skill and imagination, producing works to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power.
Suggested communities
Powered by