Director’s Cut: Robert Chuter on his film “The Dream Children”
THIS world premiere film by Melbourne director Robert Chuter follows Steven and Alex, two men whose life is turned upside-down when they look to the black market in order to become fathers.
Chuter originally directed The Dream Children as a play, also written by the film’s screenwriter Julia Britton, during Midsumma in 2009. He was already making plans to turn it into a film before that initial run in the theatre ended.
“Within three or four months, the cameras were rolling,” Chuter said.
The film’s shoestring budget meant a long production process, but the director was passionate about getting it finished — he wanted to explore The Dream Children’s themes of same-sex marriage, adoption and drug addiction.
“Marriage between two people that love each other — the most important thing is that they love each other and want to be with each other, regardless of what’s between their legs, or their gender or whatever,” Chuter said.
“We’ve got a wedding scene in it… I didn’t want to do it like it was Mardi Gras, because people were going to say it’s stereotypical. So I decided to have a traditional wedding, take the bride out and put in another bridegroom.”
While Chuter was keen to paint a traditional picture of marriage in the film, for The Dream Children’s multiple sex scenes he wanted a more “European” feel.
“The way I approached it was to have love scenes about two people in love, rather than two men,” he explained.
“There are four sex scenes in it, and the comments from the sex scenes have been absolutely amazing, because they’re emotionally driven.”
The Dream Children is screening on Tuesday, March 24 at 6pm. Details and tickets: click here
The 25th Melbourne Queer Film Festival is on March 19–30. For the full line up of movies, venue details and to book tickets, visit: mqff.com.au
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**This article was first published in the April edition of the Star Observer, which is available to read in digital flip-book format. To obtain a physical copy, click here to find out where you can grab one in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra and select regional/coastal areas.
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