** FREE SCREENING AS PART OF THE DIVERSITY WEEK FILM FESTIVAL. CLICK http://www.anufg.org.au/read/7585/diversity-week-film-festival-2012-august.html[HERE] FOR MORE DETAILS. **

Michael Winterbottom is one of the most erratic filmmakers working today. Though his films are always intense experiences, he moves from genre to genre and tackles such varied content you never know what to expect. Some of his most recent films include the riotously funny The Trip with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, the deeply upsetting thriller The Killer Inside Me (which tapped into the true creepiness of Casey Affleck) and the deeply moving A Mighty Heart.

Trishna finds Winterbottom changing gear again, taking a leaf out of fellow Brit director Danny Boyle's book (Slumdog Millionaire) and telling a sweeping romance story against a stunning Indian backdrop. His film is a unique spin on Thomas Hardy's novel "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" and finds Trishna (the gorgeous, engaging Pinto) living a poor, sheltered life in Rajasthan until she meets the wealthy, young Jay (Ahmed) who has come back to India to work in his father's hotel business. Winterbottom takes great pleasure in soaking up the vibrant, conflicting world of Mumbai, drawing his audience into an alien, yet beautiful world.

Though this is the third time Winterbottom has adapted Hardy's work, the Indian backdrop and central romance, makes it feel as if, once again, Winterbottom is trying something new and pulling it off with his regular understated aplomb.