HOMECOMING
Across two years I collaborated with Adelaide composer Matt Laing on Homecoming, a cinematic project celebrating the extraordinary landscape of the Bluff at Encounter Bay on South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula.
The project grew from Matt’s composition From Home, written in 2020/21 and inspired by life on the Bluff across four movements: the birds, the reeds, the lizard and the granite.
My role was to create the visual world around Matt’s music.
Over two years I returned to the Bluff again and again, filming the landscape through different seasons, weather and light. For me it was a pretty wild undertaking. Every visit meant around three hours of driving, followed by climbing around a complex and sometimes dangerous rocky outcrop carrying a lot of camera gear, completely at the mercy of the weather and, occasionally, the lizard gods.
The work finally came together in 2026, with its world premiere at the beautiful Victa Cinema as part of the Victor Harbor Winter Whale Festival. The film was projected on the cinema screen while Matt’s score was performed live by three extraordinary Adelaide string players: Alison Rayner on violin, Justin Julian on viola and David Moran on cello.
After spending so long alone with this landscape, seeing those images on a cinema screen with the music being performed live in the room was pretty special.
I’m currently preparing a longer film about the making of Homecoming and the two-year journey behind it.
The video below is from the world premiere at Victa Cinema.
