Ellis Park
Justin Kurzel / Australia, Indonesia & France / 2024 / European Premiere / 106 min
Charismatic composer Warren Ellis invites us into his personal universe where he runs a shelter for endangered animals in Sumatra when he is inventing new sounds with his violin and synthesizer.
Warren Ellis is best known Nick Cave’s counterpart and soulmate in The Bad Seeds, a musical wizard who roams the stage with his iconic violin and long grey beard fluttering in all directions. But the unorthodox multi-instrumentalist is much more than that. He’s also a musician in his own right for three decades and a passionate animal lover who runs a shelter for trafficked and abused animals on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. And it is this whole new side of the charismatic and deeply sympathetic Ellis that you meet in ‘Ellis Park’, which also tells his life story and charts his musical career. A career that started at his parents’ home in Australia, where his father’s tenacity on the guitar left its mark on his son, and continuted to Sumatra where Ellis funds a centre for tropical animals that are prepared to be released back into the wild. And with his shirt buttoned down to his belly button, the wilderness is a place where Ellis feels at home himself.