By Callum Ludwig
From being a young film buff in Yarra Junction to learning from some of the best in Los Angeles, Kieren Devisser’s short time in the film industry has already been filled with excitement.
He’s hoping to bring an enthralling new angle to a famed Australian tale as the executive producer of ‘Kennedy’, a telling of the story of Sergeant Michael Kennedy, who was killed in a gunfight with Ned Kelly and his gang at Stringybark Creek, and his wife Bridget Kennedy.
Mr Devisser said he was the youngest of five boys when growing up in the Yarra Valley.
“I obviously spent quite a lot of time in the bush, so I think that naturally made me a little bit of an airhead, and I found myself wandering through the bush quite often when I was younger, and just creating stories in my mind and acting it out,” he said.
“I remember being interested in film right from the age of six or seven and if there was a movie that I loved, very much to the annoyance of my brothers, I would watch it about a hundred times over and I would study the film head to toe,”
“It was something that I was always interested in, but it just never seemed feasible to me when I was younger.”
According to the National Portrait Gallery, Sgt Kennedy and Constables Michael Scanlan, Thomas Lonigan and Thomas McIntyre were dispatched to the Wombat Ranges near Mansfield in search of the Kelly Gang (Ned Kelly, his brother Dan and friends Steve Hart and Joe Byrne) and camped at Stringybark creek on 25 October 1878.
Unbeknownst to them, the Kelly gang found their campsite and when Kennedy and Scanlan went out to search the next day, the outlaws ambushed the remaining police officers. Lonigan was shot dead first, McIntyre escaped and ran to Mansfield while Scanlan and Kennedy were killed on their return. According to Monument Australia, Sgt Kennedy was at one point in a shootout with the four bushrangers after Lonigan and Scanlan were shot dead until he was wounded, fell to the ground and was murdered while defenceless by Ned Kelly.
Mr Devisser said he had been interested in the Ned Kelly story since he was nine years old.
“Our family used to go up to Beechworth and northeast Victoria most years and I remember when I was nine, I ended up going to Stringybark Creek with my dad,” he said.
“I remember shaking hands with Ian Jones, who was one of the leading researchers on the Kelly story and I was reading his book at the time and since then I wanted to do something in the entertainment industry and potentially produce a film myself on Ned Kelly that would do justice to the police,”
“When I got given this opportunity, I just thought it was fantastic, Darren Hawkins and Lauren Hamilton Neill, who are the writers of this film, have written it with absolute accuracy, they are fantastic at what they’ve done, they’ve spent years researching it and I had full faith in these guys.”
Hawkins is the director of the film and has won awards in indie and horror film awards and festivals for his horror films ‘The Lonely Road’ and ‘Occultum Mala’. Lauren Hamilton Neill is an actress who co-wrote the film and will play the role of Bridget Kennedy.
Mr Devisser said what few people may know was that the first-ever feature film back in 1906 was about the Kelly gang and was a global phenomenon at the time.
“Since then there have been nine films based on Ned Kelly, eleven if you include the satire versions and these films have attracted the likes of Heath Ledger, Orlando Bloom and Russell Crowe,” he said.
“Kennedy is the first film of its kind that dives into the policemen in the Kelly story and while it’s not seeking to vilify Ned Kelly in any way, it’s designed to shed light on a forgotten story that deserves the attention of the Australian public,”
“I think the people of the Yarra Valley are some of the most beautiful and honest people in the country so I think audiences in the Yarra Valley will respect a truer side of the Ned Kelly story and learn a little bit more about the tapestry of what happened that’s not centralized around Ned Kelly and the mythology around him.”
Mr Devisser only found his way into the film industry in 2020, jumping into his childhood passions amidst the Covid lockdowns with a 12-month advanced acting course.
Mr Devisser from there he wrote a 1930s period drama television show based on New York gangsters that took him to Los Angeles where he resided throughout 2022.
“Despite its promising trajectory, due to issues in the industry, including the screenwriter strikes, it never left pre-production but learning the hands-on approach on how to produce a TV show like that, how to write, meeting some pretty high-up people in the entertainment industry over in Los Angeles and seeing how it’s all put together was invaluable,” he said.
“The last four years for people in the entertainment industry have been incredibly tough and I have found that a lot of people in the industry have been discouraged by that, but for anyone interested, they just need to keep pursuing it,”
“The next 10 years within the Australian industry are very promising and exciting, we’ve got major US productions coming over to Australia, Netflix and major streaming services are putting huge budgets down on Australian productions as well, so there’s plenty of work that will be coming to the Australian industry in the next decade so just keep networking with people and trying to get your foot in the door would be my advice.”
