The Castle

The Castle (1997)

Ordinary Family. Extraordinary Story.

The quirky Kerrigan family lives together in a makeshift home they built themselves – with great pride and a bizarre attention to detail – a few yards from the edge of Melbourne, Australia's busy Tullamarine Airport. When a building inspector condemns the building and reveals that the government plans to use their land for an airport expansion, Darryl Kerrigan and his brood recruit hack attorney Dennis Denuto and prepare themselves for the fight of their lives.

Date of release
1997-04-10
TMDB
7.1 / 10 (243)
Runtime
1h 25m
Genres
Drama, Comedy
Director
Rob Sitch

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Box office: A$10.3M
  • Filmed in: Melbourne and Canberra
  • Awards: 1 · Nominations: 5. Including: AACTA Award for Best Original Screenplay

The Castle is a 1997 Australian comedy film directed by Rob Sitch, and written by Sitch, Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner and Jane Kennedy of Working Dog Productions. The film stars Michael Caton, Anne Tenney, Stephen Curry, Anthony Simcoe, Sophie Lee, and Wayne Hope as the Kerrigan family, as well as Tiriel Mora, Robyn Nevin, Eric Bana, Costas Kilias, and longtime collaborator Charles "Bud" Tingwell.

Production

The film's title is based upon the English saying, repeatedly referred to in the film, "A man's home is his castle". Its humour plays on the national self-image, most notably the concept of working-class Australians and their place in modern Australia.

According to Santo Cilauro, the film took five weeks from its original inception to the final cut. The screenplay was written in two weeks, shot in 10-11 days, and taken to rough cut in two weeks. Its budget was around A$750,000.

Writers Jane Kennedy, Tom Gleisner, Santo Cilauro, and Rob Sitch (who also directed) had met at university and were known for their comedy shows The D-Generation (1986–1987), The Late Show (1992), and Frontline (1994–1997). They had founded Working Dog Productions, along with producer Michael Hirsh, in 1993. The Castle was produced by Debra Choate through Working Dog Productions.

The Castle was filmed mostly in Melbourne, Victoria during July 1996. The external shots of the Kerrigan household were shot at 3 Dagonet St, Strathmore, and airport footage was shot at Essendon Airport and Melbourne Airport. Location shots of Brunswick feature in the film, including Brunswick Town Hall and Rocky Porcino Pharmacy at 720 Sydney Rd (Dennis's office).

The name Kerrigan was chosen for the family so that tow trucks could be borrowed from an existing Melbourne tow truck company with that name. The company still operates today.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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