STRAY
New Zealand / 2018 / 104 min / DCP / Comedy Drama
Director : Dustin Feneley
Script : Dustin Feneley
Cinematography : Ari Wegner
Editing : Dione Chard
Production : Desray Armstrong, Dustin Feneley
Sales : Oration Films
Cast : Kieran Charnock (Jack), Arta Dobroshi (Grace), Joel Fili (Probation Officer), Gerard Murphy (Old Man)
Moscow Festival 2018
In a cold and remote landscape, two strangers struggle to repair their broken pasts. A young man is on parole after serving time for attempting to murder the man who killed his girlfriend in a hit and run. A woman is released from a psychiatric facility far from her homeland. These two damaged strangers cross paths in the mountains in winter and fall into a complex intimate relationship, putting to the test their capacity to trust and heal.
Dustin Feneley
Born in Sydney in 1982, Dustin Feneley is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts Film School. His short films as writer and director (Night, Snow, Hawker, Eskimo Kiss) have won numerous awards and screened at over one hundred film festivals, including official selections at Cannes, London, Sydney and Melbourne. In 2006, his short film Snow premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in the Cinéfondation selection. In the same year, Snow was exhibited at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. In 2007, Dustin was the recipient of the Qantas Spirit of Youth Award for Moving Image, the leading awards in Australasia for emerging creative talent. In 2011, he was awarded the Filmmaker Grand Prix at the Sapporo International Short Film Festival in Japan for his body of work in short films. Dustin is an alumni of Melbourne International Film Festival's Accelerator programme and Script to Screen's FilmUp programme. He has been a selector and mentor for Script to Screen's Short Film Lab and has taught undergraduate courses in filmmaking. His debut feature project Stray was selected for the Directors Lab of the Binger Filmlab in Amsterdam in 2012 and for CineMart at Rotterdam in 2013. Set in the Southern Alps of New Zealand, Stray had its World Premiere in Main Competition at the 2018 Moscow International Film Festival, where it won the Silver Saint George Award for Best Actor. Dustin lives in Auckland and is a dual citizen of Australia and New Zealand.