Hugo Weaving to Head the Cast of Craig Monahan's 'Healing'

SYDNEY - Hugo Weaving is reteaming with Australian director Craig Monahan to star in his new prison feature, Healing, alongside Xavier Samuel and Don Hany.

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Healing, a tale of redemption and the discovery of hope, centers on real-life prison inmate Viktor Khadem’s (Hany) last 18 months before release after serving a 16-year term. Khadem is sent to Won Wron, a low-security, prerelease prison farm, where Senior Officer Matt Perry (Weaving) has established a unique program to rehabilitate broken men by giving them the responsibility for the rehabilitation of injured game birds, such as eagles, falcons and owls. 

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Weaving and Monahan worked together on Monahan’s Australian Film Institute award-winning feature The Interview in 1998 and Peaches (2004). The role of Khadem is Hany’s  first in a major feature after an award-winning run in a number of Australian television series.

Monahan is co-producing alongside Tait Brady and has written the screenplay with Alison Niselle.

“This project has attracted a remarkable cast and crew, and we are privileged to be working with them and the dedicated staff at Healesville Sanctuary,” he said.

Also joining the cast is Xavier Samuel, Jane Menelaus, Anthony Hayes, Mark Leonard Winter, Robert Taylor, Justine Clarke, Laura Brent  and Tony Martin.

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Andrew Lesnie, coming off the ground-breaking Hobbit films, is the director of photography.

Production starts in Melbourne and regional Victoria on Feb. 18, with a release slated for early 2014.

Healing is being produced through Monahan’s Point Blank Pictures and will be distributed in Australia by Pinnacle Films. 

It has received financing from Screen Australia, Film Victoria, Deluxe and ABC TV and is filming in regional Victoria with the support of the Victorian Government’s RLAF Fund.

International sales are being handled by Los Angeles-based sales agent Lightning Entertainment, which is shopping the film at the European Film Market in Berlin.