Healing

Viktor Kahdem, a man who has almost given up on living, is sent to a low-security prison farm. At Won Wron the case worker Matt Perry has set up an unusual programme: he gives prisoners the care of injured birds of prey, the responsibility for bringing eagles, falcons and owls back. The bird given to Viktor is a wedge-tailed eagle with a wingspan of about two metres. The programme is built as real work rather than as a metaphor, and the healing is shown as something mutual. Craig Monahan’s film took its cue from an actual raptor rehabilitation programme set up between the Healesville sanctuary near Melbourne and the Victorian prison service. Won Wron does indeed lie some two hundred kilometres outside Melbourne. Hugo Weaving plays Matt Perry and Don Hany plays Viktor.