Two Australian brothers filmed a rarely staged Shakespeare tragedy

Dan and Bramwell Noah are two Australian brothers who direct together, and they rarely stay in one genre. Their film I, Timon adapts Timon of Athens, a Shakespeare tragedy the Folger Shakespeare Library, a leading Shakespeare research library in Washington, calls rarely performed. Relay has 3 of their films, and each one is a different kind of story.

Bramwell Noah writes the scripts and also acts in them. The brothers work under the name Noah Bros., and their first feature, According to Ben Adams, put him in the role of the Devil, meeting a gentle madman who claims to be Jesus. Their site says that film and I, Timon won awards in almost every category at international festivals, including several special jury prizes.

Why film a play almost nobody stages?

I, Timon is a period adaptation in which Bramwell Noah plays Timon and co-directs with Dan. The Noahs' own site says it brings Timon of Athens to the big screen for the first time.

The story is blunt. Timon is a wealthy, generous man. When his creditors demand repayment, his friends refuse to help, so he abandons Athens and retreats to the woods. The play was first printed in the First Folio of 1623, the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays, and it is seldom staged.

At the Los Angeles Film Awards in May 2017, the film won Best Drama and Bramwell Noah won Best Actor for the title role. Both prizes come from the festival's own winners page.

Action/Adventure

What changed when they made a crime film?

Something To Do With Death is a crime drama, and the Noahs describe it as an original take on the gangster genre. Bramwell Noah wrote it, and the production company is Noah's Art Movies, according to Screen Australia, the national film funding agency. Relay's synopsis sets it in a city ruled by cops and criminals, where a stranger shows them how much damage one bullet can do.

The cast includes Lu Yi, Yanik Khoshnow, Bramwell Noah, Daniel Schepisi and Mladen Petrovic. The festival's winners page lists it as winner of Best Foreign Film at the 2018 ReelHeART festival in Toronto and second in its feature film category.

Festival winners pages list Lu Yi as Best Actress at the New York Film Awards in January 2019 and Dan Noah as an Honorable Mention for Director at the Los Angeles Film Awards that month.

Crime

What is the Noahs' nearly wordless film?

Song Without Words is the newest of the three. Screen Australia gives it the tagline "Some robots are more real than others", and the Noahs call it an almost wordless sci-fi fairytale about what it means to be human. Relay's synopsis describes a street performer who never says a word and begins to change lives with his very special act.

Bramwell Noah wrote it, and Dan Noah is an executive producer alongside Jehu Kedron. It shares part of its cast with the crime film: Lu Yi, Mladen Petrovic, Bramwell Noah and Daniel Schepisi appear in both.

The IndieFEST Film Awards listed it for Awards of Recognition in Direction and Leading Actress, for Annie Thorold, in February 2022.

Drama

What to watch first

I, Timon has the most unusual premise: a Shakespeare play that theatres seldom stage. Something To Do With Death is the brothers' crime film. Song Without Words tells its story with almost no dialogue.