boat with no name – Michmutters
Categories
Entertainment

Northern Territory filmmaker Phil O’Brien shoots big-hearted feature in Nhulunbuy

Armed with a pawn shop camera, a cast of small town players and a heart bigger than Phar Lap, a Northern Territory director has proven you don’t need grants to shoot a feature film.

Or expensive equipment.

Or trained actors.

All director Phil O’Brien needed was a solid script and enough goodwill from a small northern township to see it through to a final cut.

“It was like climbing up Mount Everest in a pair of thongs,” said Mr O’Brien.

“Sometimes, every step you took it just got harder and harder.”

What finally emerged was an epic ode to a remote Australian coastal paradise, called The Boat With No Name, shot on location in East Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory.

A red carpet screening was held at the Gove Boat Club near the town of Nhulunbuy earlier this year, and garnered rave reviews from the locals – but the film nearly didn’t happen.

red carpet rolled out on grass near a beach
‘The Boat With No Name’ had its world premiere at the Gove Boat Club earlier this year.(Supplied: Rob Stewart)

Mr O’Brien, a fourth generation Territorian who is also an author, musician, former croc farmer and campfire raconteur, had his script ready to go, but no funding to back it up.

“I got knocked back by every grant body known to mankind,” he said.

“I got no money, no film crew, but I got the story, right?

.