The Furnace

The Story

Additional Language: Badimaya. 1897 Western Australia. To escape a harsh existence and return home, a young Afghan cameleer partners with a mysterious bushman on the run with two 400oz Crown-marked gold bars. Together the unlikely pair must outwit a zealous police sergeant and his troopers in a race to reach a secret furnace—the one place where they can safely reset the bars to remove the mark of the Crown. The film is an unlikely hero’s tale, navigating greed and the search for identity in a new land. It illuminates the forgotten history of Australia’s “Ghan” cameleers, predominantly Muslim and Sikh men from India, Afghanistan and Persia, who opened up the Nation’s desert interior, thereby forming unique bonds with local Aboriginal people.

Rating

MA 15

Duration

116 min

Cast

David Wenham, Erik Thomson, Jay Ryan, Mahesh Jadu, Goran D. Kleut

Director

Roderick MacKay