TRUE CRIME: Jim Schembri interviews director Sitiris Dounoukos

REAL CRIME: The bizarre killing at the heart of Joe Cinque’s Consolation consumed director Sotiris Dounoukos for nearly a decade.

Based on the award-winning 2007 true-crime book by Helen Garner, Joe Cinque’s Consolation is a disturbing dramatisation of one of the oddest crimes in recent memory.

Set in Canberra, 1997 it tells of the strange relationship between Anu Singh (played in the film by Maggie Naouri), a charismatic student at the Australian National University, and her boyfriend Joe Cinque (Jerome Meyer).

Unbalanced and manipulative, she tells a small group of friends she plans to take her own life aswell as Joe’s. Despite this, the friends remain inactive.

In adapting the book over about eight years, director Sotiris Dounoukos deliberately kept the focus on the crime itself rather than the aftermath, keen to explore the inner workings of the characters.

In this wide-ranging interview he discusses the making of the film and how he got such remarkable performances from his dedicated cast.

To watch the interview, please click here:

To view the trailer for Joe Cinque’s Consolation, please click here: