The Director Explains "The Panther".

"It’s a huge mythology that’s been going for over 100 years in Victoria. It’s this sort of urban legend. I felt like it was an interesting parallel to draw – that one day death stalks into this town. It’s a representation of your past coming back to haunt you.

The essence of this film is that it’s about a town that is dying. It’s an old boom town that’s hanging on to its former glory days. What I was drawn to in the western genre is that sense of a “moral code”. All my favourite westerns are about these thriving boom towns. I was interested to know what happens to that boom town 100 years later when all the industries that built it have run out and all the people have left.

For me, that was really interesting. You have these stoic characters like Old Bill who are hanging onto the past. And then you place a young, new constable into that situation and you create a “changing of the guard”."