THE DIGGER wins award at Cannes

25 October 2011

Press Release
October 17 2011

‘The Digger - A History’ wins Gold at Cannes

Bearcage is delighted to announce that the documentary THE DIGGER – A HISTORY won the Gold award at the Cannes Corporate & Television Awards in the History and Civilization category.

The film charts the history of legendary fighting soldier the Australian Digger from their origins in the Boer War to the present day. Through a sequence of pivotal battles spanning the globe, THE DIGGER follows the rise of these tough-as-nails fighting soldiers and their well-earned reputation for wartime heroics and off-duty insubordination.

The film’s director Serge Ou says “I think it exposes a side of Australians that we all know but we don’t quite understand. When you think of the hundreds of thousands that have served, it begs the question is there is a such a thing as the archetypal Digger. Well there is and it is uniquely Australian - it is about the humanity of these people the ordinary soldiers, ordinary Australians demonstrating courage, and initiative in the most trying of situations.”

The film’s producer Michael Tear says that the film was a logistic and creative challenge, “we had to condense 100 years of history into 90 minutes. The shoot took place in in six countries, South Africa, France, Egypt, Korea, Vietnam and PNG. Recreations from the battlefield scenes were shot in Queensland right in the middle of the floods of January 2011”.

The scriptwriter Michael Cove said that” we wanted to explore the icon of the Australian soldier which is The Digger not just celebrated as the famous soldiers but also examines what the icon really means and what is unique about the Australian soldier. We wanted to bring the digger to life and the use of digger’s diary entries, jokes, songs, is one way of hearing those voices”.

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