Bryant Biopic ‘Nitram’ In Production

Stan has announced that it is making a feature film based on the life of the perpetrator of the Port Arthur massacre.

From Australian director Justin Kurzel and writer Shaun Grant, Nitram “is a study of one of the darkest chapters in Australian history” according to the pay television channel.

The movie is currently in production in Geelong, Victoria, and will premiere on Stan and in cinemas in 2021.

Justin Kurzel.

The director-writer team of Kurzel and Grant was also responsible for True History of the Kelly Gang and Snowtown.

The cast features Caleb Landry Jones (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Judy Davis (The Dressmaker), Essie Davis (True History of the Kelly Gang) and Anthony LaPaglia (Lantana).

A Stan media release described Nitram as “a scripted feature film that looks at the events leading up to one of the darkest chapters in Australian history in an attempt to understand why and how this atrocity occurred.”

GoodThing Productions’ Nick Batzias and Virigina Whitwell (2040, The Australian Dream) are producing, with Madman Entertainment handling theatrical distribution. Nitram will premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival next year after receiving funding through the MIFF Premiere Fund. Wild Bunch International are handling worldwide sales of the film.

Stan Chief Content Officer Nick Forward said: “Stan is pleased to again collaborate with Justin Kurzel and Shaun Grant and we have complete faith in the Nitram team’s creative vision and ability to handle the film’s subject matter with sensitivity and respect.”

In response to Tasmanian Times queries, a Stan spokesperson said “we’re not providing any further details or comments at this time.”

Tasmanian Times understands that the movie will focus on the background of Martin Bryant, who murdered 35 people and injured 23 others in a shooting spree at the historic Port Arthur site in Tasmania in April 1996.

The Sydney Morning Herald suggests that the producers chose to shoot in Victoria rather than Tasmania for fear the subject matter would still prove too sensitive for the state where Bryant went on his murderous rampage at the age of 29.

It is also understood that Bryant is not named in the movie. Judy Davis plays the key figure’s mother and Anthony LaPaglia plays his father. Essie Davis (no relation) – a native Tasmanian and Kurzel’s wife – plays Helen, a wealthy woman who befriends the young man.

The SMH also reports that the anti-violence organisation established by Walter Mikac in honour of his daughters, who were murdered along with their mother by Bryant, was made aware of the film on Monday but declined to offer a view.

“The Alannah & Madeline Foundation chooses to focus on the recovery of victims and the prevention of violence,” said chief executive Lesley Podesta. “We have no comment about this forthcoming film.”

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