Outback Outbreak YOLANDA RAMKE AND BEN HOWLING ON CARGO AND THE ZOMBIE FILM
Yolanda Ramke and Ben Howling are among that fortunate breed of filmmaker who builds a reputation on the strength of one undeniably good short film. In this case, their 2013 Tropfest effort, Cargo – a heartfelt, elegiac riff on the zombie subgenre – put them on the map with several million views on YouTube, soon after which they went on to sign with powerbrokers Creative Artists Agency (CAA). It’s worth recalling that similar good fortune struck for Leigh Whannell and James Wan, whose Saw prototype – made when they were recent RMIT graduates – was immediately snapped up by Hollywood and made into their first full-length feature, which premiered in 2004.
It’s a brave new world. Ramke and Howling tell me their decision to develop a specifically Australian property as their first feature film was a creative rather than political one. Two of their producers, US-based Russell Ackerman and John Schoenfelder of Addictive Pictures, recognised that a localised take on the zombie subgenre would be a selling point, not a disadvantage. Ackerman and Schoenfelder then approached Sydney-based producers Sam Jennings and Kristina Ceyton of Causeway Films, and – with support from Screen Australia and the South Australian Film Corporation – the feature-length Cargo began production in 2016.
A First Nations approach to zombies
Ramke and Howling’s collaboration
