Keiran, Film-maker, Chewton Bushlands, Dja Dja Wurrung Country

Keiran spent the first years of his life on the very same property he lives now. Back then there was no house, there was only a toilet up the hill with a crack in the seat that would pinch your butt when you sat on it. His parents owned the property, and his dad gave it to his mum in the divorce. His mum met an American called Hans, who helped her build the mudbrick house. Keiran was a young child and remembers it being a very humble life, living off grid with little money.

Keiran’s family moved to America to live in Connecticut with Hans and his parents. They found themselves immediately surrounded by wealth - Hans’ father was a well respected composer, and the band leader on The Tonight Show. He began schooling there, and remembers being taken to the cinema by his mum and Hans, who were unaware of what was appropriate for a child, and would often see Lynch films, or silent or foreign films. As he wasn’t allowed to watch television he was completely desensitised to film, and fell in love with cinema. In high school he moved to New York City to study film. He lived in a tiny studio apartment and when he sat out on his stoop to have his morning cuppa often kids from the street would sit next to him to shoot up. His time here opened his eyes to a whole other world he’d never known living in such an affluent and conservative suburb.

He spent his twenties living between America and Australia trying to make a living from film. For a while he even moved to San Francisco to assist Francis Ford Coppola, but he tells me after he assisted on a few videos, Francis became too busy making wine in Napa to make films. While in America his biological father suddenly passed away - he’d been helping his mum build the mud brick house and living in a caravan on the property in the middle of winter, and had left his heater on and asphyxiated. His mum found him days later.

Keiran says this experience made him feel completely ungrounded, and felt the urge to tie himself to something. He decided to move back to Australia, back to the mud brick house. He had two children, and his son Theo was born with Achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism, so Keiran became a disability ally - he even made a film starring his son. The film, Caravan, depicts two young boys as they play in a caravan next to a dead body, innocently unaware of the reality surrounding them.