Fifteen years ago, my interview with Claire McCarthy, Australian filmmaker

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Fifteen years ago, my interview with Claire McCarthy, Australian filmmaker

30 June 2025

In 2010, Claire McCarthy’s publicity company kindly gave me the opportunity to ask her about her then upcoming film, The Waiting City, which starred Radha Mitchell and Joel Edgerton. I published the interview on this day fifteen years ago.

I remember feeling a tad apprehensive preparing my questions as I hadn’t seen the film beforehand, and subsequently didn’t think they were particularly original. All seemed to be well (or well enough) on the night though, as they say.

The Waiting City, a film by Claire McCarthy, with Radha Mitchell, Joel Edgerton

12 July 2010

The Waiting City, trailer, the second full length feature of Sydney and Los Angeles based Australian filmmaker Claire McCarthy, has the distinction of being the first Australian produced movie to be filmed entirely in India. The story recounts the experiences of Fiona Simmons (Radha Mitchell), and husband Ben (Joel Edgerton), who travel to the city of Kolkata to adopt a baby girl.

While outwardly happy, the couple are as different as chalk and cheese. The “always on” Fiona continues working on client cases — through her mobile phone and laptop — as if she never left the office. This is in sharp contrast to the laid back, somewhat aimless Ben, who easily strikes up rapport with the locals through his music.

The adoption process, which the couple expect to be a mere formality — they only booked their Kolkata hotel for two weeks after all — turns out to be far more daunting than anticipated. Instead Fiona and Ben find themselves confronted by a rigid, and manual bureaucratic system, replete with delays and hold-ups, that are unexpected and unexplained.

Despite the reservations of others, particularly Krishna (Samrat Chakrabarti), a hotel worker with a direct manner whom they befriend, there is no doubt Ben and Fiona are eagerly awaiting the finalisation of the adoption process. The want nothing more than to take Lakshmi, their adoptive daughter, home to Australia.

But Ben’s chance meeting with the younger Scarlett (Isabel Lucas), a fellow musician from Australia, brings to light the first hint of trouble in his marriage with Fiona. This leads to a series of rifts between the two, which at one point sees the pair staying in separate hotels.

The growing discord between Ben and Fiona gradually results in the reopening of old wounds, and the uncovering of a long held secret. Their marital woes come to a head during a trip to Bhopal, Lakshmi’s birth place, leaving the couple questioning whether they should even be together, let alone adopting a child.

McCarthy is in no hurry to tell her story allowing us to take in the enthralling destinations that are Kolkata and the other places Ben and Fiona visit. Mitchell, who blends seamlessly into her role as the hopeful mother-to-be, together with the ever versatile Edgerton, put in stand out performances.

Visually, The Waiting City is a delight to watch, thanks to the work of cinematographer Denson Baker, whose soft, hazy camera work beautifully renders the locations. His use of close shots meanwhile, projects the bewilderment and turmoil first time travellers to unfamiliar places experience.

The Waiting City is more than a journey to exotic lands though, it is one of self discovery and coming to understand what you really want from life. To adapt a line from a well known quote, perhaps the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself first.

Update: I recently interviewed director Claire McCarthy about the making of The Waiting City.

Originally published Monday 12 July 2010, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.

Q&A with Claire McCarthy director of The Waiting City

30 June 2010

Fiona (Radha Mitchell), and Ben (Joel Edgerton) sit together on a bench, in a scene from The Waiting City, a film by Claire McCarthy. Fiona has curly hair and is wearing a blue top, while Ben has short hair and a serious expression, ans is dressed in a light-colored shirt. Behind them, a white cross adorns the wall.

Australian director Claire McCarthy’s latest film The Waiting City is a portrayal of an Australian couple Ben (Joel Edgerton), and Fiona (Radha Mitchell), who travel to Kolkata, India, to collect a baby they have adopted. But delays in finalising the process, together with the disorientation of an unknown city and unfamiliar culture, begin to take a strain on their marriage.

The Waiting City has the distinction of being the first Australian made movie to be filmed entirely in India. Recently Claire McCarthy (Instagram page) took some time out to answer a few of my questions about the making of her new film.

Q: To what degree did your experiences of living in India, and working in orphanages there, have in inspiring the film?

A: A great deal of the film is based on real life situations, friends and interview subjects although it is most certainly a work of fiction. The film is an amalgam of many formative experiences in my life.

Beginning with working in the slums of Kolkata with Mother Teresa’s nuns with my amazing sister Helena and at a turning point shooting a music video on the sweltering banks of the Ganges with my husband-to-be Denson Baker ACS as a test run for the real film, The Waiting City in many ways is an expression of many of my loves; of people, music, food, culture and importantly, of the city of Kolkata.

The documentary I made (called Sisters) also undeniably became a jumping off point for research and development of the fiction screenplay of The Waiting City and gave me insight into the people behind adoption as well as the people and city of Calcutta. I have gleaned so much inspiration from so many very remarkable and inspiring people who have allowed me to interview them and have shared their stories with me.

The inspiration for this story is personal, researched, observed and imagined.

Q: The Waiting City was filmed entirely in India, and accordingly we see nothing of the life of Ben and Fiona in Australia. Why was that?

A: My intention was to allow Fiona and Ben’s history to gradually bubble up to the surface through their experiences in India. This felt like a more elegant solution to expose the characters, and us the audience, to the world of India and that in doing so force them to question their lives and choices about themselves and their relationship.

Q: Aside from your past association with Kolkata, why did you choose to make this city the main setting for the story?

A: The personal connection I had with Kolkata was a big factor in setting the film in this city. It was crucial that the film had a unique rhythm, texture, colour palette and sense of exoticism that we as a Western audience had never seen before. Kolkata is a perfect for this as it has such a unique look and feel and so many contrasting locations and settings.

It was important that through the journey into this city that the main characters would be forced out of their comfort zones to be truly present experiencing each other and the city. The film is really inspired by the beauty, textures and unique rhythms of the city of Kolkata.

As another character in the film too Kolkata forces our main characters to really think about their projections and judgements and to look at their own lives back in Australia from a different vantage point. So it was an aesthetic, strategic, emotional and personal reason to shoot in the city of Kolkata.

Q: What for you was the biggest challenge in filming completely on an overseas location?

A: It was crucial to me that the team became like a family in the making of The Waiting City. We never wanted to be considered a ‘foreign’ film as such and were resistant to the idea of just coming into India and taking over the town. We wanted the film to be a collaborative process with a blending of ideas and resources.

This was one of the biggest challenges of the film; finding the time to ensure the creative process was not lost under the freight train of production pressures. The film is a very fine example of high level planning, collaboration and cultural exchange between incredible Australian and Indian creatives and technicians.

Q: Adoption is a key part of the story, were there any thoughts you wished to convey here, especially on the adoption of children from developing nations?

A: As a filmmaker it’s not my intention to be for or against adoption, it’s more to raise questions about what it means to take a child away from their culture and whether or not bringing them to another culture is a good or a bad thing. In the work I did in orphanages and the research I did about adoption, the one consistent factor I found was the protracted waiting period to receive a child.

Over and above the adoption process itself, the possibilities interested me of what might happen to a couple whilst they were waiting to receive their child.

So I began to look at that emotional stranglehold for both the parents and the child, which was of primary interest to me as a filmmaker over and above the adoption process itself. I started to consider that in waiting for a child a couple would inevitably be pulled in so many different directions and vulnerabilities would be exposed within their relationship.

So in the film the adoption process forces the relationship of the couple under a microscope and causes them to address other issues as well: motherhood, fertility, mortality, gender politics, different expressions of families and journeys to parenthood, spirituality and desire.

Thanks Claire.

Update: some behind the scenes video footage of The Waiting City just to hand.

Originally published Wednesday 30 June 2010, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.