The Cult’s frontman, Ian Astbury, has told The Quietus that he’s in the process of starting up parallel career as a film director. "I’d really love to direct a film," he says. "I’ve got a film company and for the last three-and-a-half years I’ve been making short films."
Asked if he had any projects in mind, Astbury confirmed that he’s in the early stages of developing his first feature film. "I’m working on a feature now and it’s got the working title of Tatiana," reveals Astbury.
"It’s a science fiction film and it’s set in 2054 in Vladivostok and the Chinese and the Russians are fighting over fresh water. There’s a young woman, an orphan, and she’s caught up in the conflict and she rises from being an orphan to being to the most important female of her generation and then it goes further.
"Then it gets very Tarkovsky and goes into Solaris territory."
The Cult singer, whose new album, Choice Of Weapon, has just been released, explained that his interest in film has been with him since childhood but it was something he’d suppressed for too long.
"I remember watching Lawrence Of Arabia by David Lean when I was a kid and that was it," he recalls. "That was an experience but film was always something for ‘them’ and those that went to film school and the erudite and I told myself for years that it was something that I could never do and never be involved in.
"But then I woke up one day and I thought, ‘Why the fuck not?’ If Kanye West can make a film then we can all make a film!"
Fans will probably have to wait some time before his project finally hits the silver screen: "I’m developing the script right now and I’m doing the research. I have two producers who are interested. Now I have to find a director of photography but I’m a film director!"
