Greg and Kate Barrington are the only two permanent residents of Forrest, Australia. Located in an exceptionally remote stretch of southwestern Australia, the town exists solely to accompany a small airport for planes making emergency landings. As Forrest’s caretakers, the couple keeps the town’s airstrip and six rarely occupied cottages in pristine condition. In The Big Wait, the London-based director Yannick Jamey revels in the surreality of the scene, capturing Greg and Kate as they ride their bikes and race a car down the runway, and keep the town’s lawns green amid a vast sea of red outback dirt. But, more than just a portrait of an unusual place, the film captures the distinct joys, lonelinesses and peculiarities of a life lived far from other people and the broader concerns of society at large.
