FLATHEAD (2024)

In Flathead, first-time director Jaydon Martin delivers a deeply personal and poetic portrait of working-class life in rural Australia. The film follows Cass, a man returning to his childhood home in Bundaberg, Queensland, after years away. As he reconnects with his old friend Andrew, Cass is forced to confront the ghosts of his past and the unspoken weight of grief, faith, and fading masculinity that haunts their lives. Shot with raw intimacy and striking visual minimalism, Flathead blurs the line between documentary and fiction--capturing real people, real places, and a lived-in authenticity that rarely reaches the screen. Winner of the Special Jury Award in the Tiger Competition at the 2024 International Film Festival Rotterdam, Martin's debut is both a love letter and elegy to a disappearing Australia--an atmospheric meditation on memory, belonging, and the quiet ache of men searching for meaning in the places they once called home.