skip to content
Ronin Films

Shop for a film

KILLING PRISCILLA

Year: 1999

Classification: Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG

Runtime: 55 min

Produced In: Australia

Directed By: Lizzy Gardiner

Produced By: Jane Scott

Language: English

price includes GST and postage

Vimeo on demand

Not so very long ago, Stephan Elliott wrote and directed a movie called THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT. It was a low-budget no-stars trip through the Australian outback with a bunch of drag queens. It was also a worldwide smash which grossed over a hundred million dollars at the box office.

Cut to: four years and one flop later.

Elliott is now trying to make a movie titled EYE OF THE BEHOLDER. The budget is twelve million. Ewan McGregor, k.d. lang, Ashley Judd and Jason Priestley are among the cast. The storyline promises action-adventure in nine American cities across four different seasons.

The financing has been done outside the studio system - through a team of "sales agents" who want a profit. Or else.

Enter Lizzy Gardiner. Academy Award-winning costume designer and friend of Elliott's for more than twenty years, Gardiner was on set to design the costumes for Eye of the Beholder. This time however she brought with her a new friend: a Sony 1000 DVC camera. And in a moment of insanity Elliott gave her permission to document the whole process. Gardiner had unlimited access to the whole shebang.

KILLING PRISCILLA is a no-holds-barred account of the reality of commercial film-making in the late 1990s: a study in passion, power, madness and lies.

Related files