FEELING HOT, HOT, HOT

KEEPING cool was the biggest challenge on the sweltering Gold Coast at the weekend but Jordyn Thompson, 11 yesterday, found the perfect respite at Canungra Creek. Despite a dip in temperature this week, hot conditions are set to return next weekend.

SWINGING Safari writer and director Stephan Elliott would love to return to the Gold Coast to make another film.

“Oh God yeah. I spent a lot of my childhood up here so I’m very familiar with it,” he said.

Centred around three families who live in a suburban culde-sac in 1970s coastal Australia, Elliott’s partly biographical retro romp was filmed on the Gold Coast under the working title Flam- mable Children in late 2016.

“What I most enjoyed was the people and the locals and that little bit of freedom ... the film’s about freedom and there’s still a fair bit of it up here,” Elliott said.

Elliott, 53, and the film’s young star, Brisbane teen Atticus Robb, 15, returned to the Coast last night to walk the red carpet at the film’s Queensland premiere at Event Cinemas Pacific Fair. The screening was followed by a Q & A with Elliott and Robb moderated by the Gold Coast Film Festival.

Robb plays Jeff Marsh, son of Gale and Bob Marsh (Asher Keddie and Jeremy Sims) – the character based on Elliott.

Former Neighbours co-stars Kylie Minogue and Guy Pearce team up to play Kaye and Keith Hall, with Radha Mitchell and Julian McMahon as the rich neighbours, Jo and Rick Jones, and Darcey Wilson as their daughter Melly.

Elliott, best known for directing the hit 1994 film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, said Queensland beat the rest of Australia to secure the retro romp shoot thanks to Snapper Rocks.

“I tell you what got Queensland the job was Snapper Rocks,” he said.

“I had to have a beach with somewhere to hide the whale.

“We exhausted NSW, we did Victoria, we did Perth and it came to dawn on us, we’ve got a problem here.

“Once we found a beach and I was 100 per cent comfortable that we were in the right spot, then period’s hard if you don’t have the money.”

Elliott reteamed with Priscilla collaborators including Oscar-winning costume designer Lizzy Gardiner and production designer Colin Gibson, who won an Oscar for Mad Max: Fury Road to recreate the 1970s for Swinging Safari.

While the three homes in the film are in the same cul-desac, the old Coast properties used for filming were in different suburbs. Two of the three houses have now disappeared.

“The Hall house, they demolished that right before our eyes on the last day of filming and that’s quite frightening because that sums up everything ... watching the end of an old world go,” Elliott said.

Swinging Safari opens Thursday. on