AARON Stevenson is hurrying to meet a deadline.
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The Bendigo filmmaker is in the final stages of editing his feature film The Rare Earth with the intention of entering it in the Cannes Film Festival.
It is Stevenson's fourth feature film and is set in the year 2039.
Adapting from the real-life discoveries of Mungo Lady (1969) and Mungo Man (1974), the film focuses on the discovery of a third skeleton at Lake Mungo.
Like its older brother and sister, the skeleton is around 40,000 years old but has a mysterious metal hinge in its knee. Its discovery leads to a Da Vinci Code-like mystery that has to be unravelled.
"All the picture editing is finished and the music is singed off but we have some special effects and sound mixing to do," Stevenson said.
"The pressure's on a bit because we do have to get it done by January to get it to Cannes. By the middle of January we need to have it locked off and in the sales agent's hands."
To help speed the process up, Stevenson is crowd funding so he can spend more time focused on finishing the film.
"We are definitely the first (Australian) feature film on kickstarter that's in post-production but there are a few projects that are in script stage," he said.
Post-production started while Stevenson was still filming and the whole project has been going for two years.
"We started filming in June, 2012, and have just finished about two weeks ago," he said.
The process has been extended because the film is self-funded and Stevenson still works a full-time job.
Production has taken the team to Broken Hill, Mungo, Mildura, Wentworth and Melbourne.
"It's exciting to see that the film is watchable now. It's two hours long, which is the longest film I've made, and it's quite big in its look," he said.
"Because it deals with themes of human evolution, they're big concepts and we think it's an important film."
Stevenson is hopeful of having a local premiere next year but for it qualify for Cannes it can't have a full public screening before that.
Stevenson has taken other projects to the Cannes Film Market including Hoon Capital which was filmed in Bendigo.
"It's still scary because you've sat with a film for so long then all of a sudden it's launched for everybody to watch and dissect," he said.
"I'm used to it now because I've been making films since 1989."
To see a trailer of The Rare Earth or to donate to the project visit www.kickstarter.com/projects/1361512756/the-rare-earth-feature-film