Pete Williams’ “Love letter to SA” – Aussie Indie Film, “Emotion is Dead”
It’s been dubbed “The Most South Aussie Story Ever Told”. Local Filmmaker, Pete Williams, dressed in his iconic Peter Brock jumpsuit, is hitting the road to bring his feature film, “Emotion is Dead”, to cinemas across regional SA.
The Aussie Indie Film pays tribute to the glory days of Elizabeth’s Holden Factory, and the social and economic effects of it’s fateful closure in 2017.
Williams, who grew up in the Elizabeth area, before spending 15 years in London, attending Met Film School and launching his successful film career, returned to SA as the Covid pandemic hit in 2020.
While he’s produced a range of TV and streaming content in the past, including Fearless, the inside story of the AFLW on Disney+, Channel 9’s Paramedics, Show Me The Money (Stan), and Making Their Mark – a sports documentary on Amazon Prime which follows the professional lives of Aussie Rules including Eddie Betts, Nic Naitanui and Rory Sloan, “Emotion is Dead” is his first ever Feature Drama. He calls it his “love letter to SA”.
“Coming back from overseas was like seeing my home State with fresh eyes. I adored revisiting some of the nostalgic things from my youth,” he said.
Some of those things are featured in the film, including a major scene at Gumeracha’s iconic Big Rocking Horse, Adelaide’s Botanic Gardens and the Holden factory which was a huge part of the Elizabeth culture before he left for London in 2006.
“When I went off to study, most my friends went off to work at Holdens. Uncle Ian worked in the paint shop for decades. Coming back, I saw how much its closure had affected people”.
Emotion Is Dead is based on true events, following a teenage skateboarder suffering from a recent family tragedy connected to the Holden Elizabeth Plant. Brock (played by South Aussie Actor, Jude Turner) comes up with a unique money-making scheme that tangles him up in Adelaide’s criminal underworld and only his Peter Brock-obsessed mum, Shazza, and emo ex-girlfriend can save him from a terrifying fate.
“It’s mainly set around Elizabeth, but goes into the wealthier suburbs of Stirling and Crafers, where the teen mixes a bit of gardening and a bit of crime.”
Williams, who went to Craigmore Christian School, said his Mum worked in the family business – a beauty salon at Elizabeth Downs, which also features in the film.
After successful screenings at Mount Barker and a sellout audience at Gawler, Pete and his crew of South Aussie actors, including Mount Barker’s, Tatiana Goode and Adam Tominen (renowned for his gig as the red Power Ranger!), are making their way around SA, before their Australian Indie Cinema Tour goes National, aptly finishing up in October at Mount Panorama.
