Meal Tickets producer Brooke Silcox and director Mat de Koning.
Camera IconMeal Tickets producer Brooke Silcox and director Mat de Koning. Credit: Supplied/Supplied

Meal Tickets: doco on highs and lows of Kalamunda band Screwtop Detonators showing at Luna

Lauren PilatMidland Kalamunda Reporter

HIGHS and lows of reaching international stardom for a rock ‘n’ roll band from Kalamunda are brought to the big screen in an award-winning documentary.

Meal Tickets, showing at Luna Cinemas this week, follows the lives of Screwtop Detonators band members while on tour in Melbourne and the United States.

Directed by former Midland resident Mat de Koning, Meal Tickets explores the life on the road for a rock ‘n’ roll band where relationships splinter, new friendships blossom, careers form and teenage dreams are made.

PerthNow Digital Edition.
Your local paper, whenever you want it.

Get in front of tomorrow's news for FREE

Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion.

READ NOW

The documentary took de Koning 10 years to make after starting to film band members and Kalamunda Senior High School classmates Mitch Long, Lee French, Charlie Austen and Ben Ward in 2005.

De Koning said it was “all very fun and innocent at first” but then it was like filming the “loss of our innocence”.

“When we hit our mid-20s, things got serious and continuing to film was more of a burden.

“The split from manager Dave Kavanagh was confronting.

“It’s the closest you will ever get to going on a rock ‘n’ roll tour, without actually being there.”

The 93-minute documentary, produced by former Kalamunda SHS student Brooke Silcox, screened at Sydney and Melbourne film festivals before making its WA premiere last year at the Revelation Perth International Film Festival.

Meal Tickets won Best Australian Documentary at the 2017 Melbourne Documentary Film Festival, while de Koning took out the Best Emerging Director.

Meal Tickets

February 6 and 7, 8.15pm at the Outdoor Luna Cinema February 8, 8.15pm at the Lune Camelot Cinema Tickets are $21 or $17 for children and concessions.

For tickets, go to lunapalace.com.au.

MORE: Man charged after three-hour siege in Willetton

MORE: Teenager (15) charged with lighting Canning Vale scrub fires

MORE: Perth councils interested in Perth Trackless Tram project