The Cape documentary on Stan: Justine Rosenthal on venturing into remote Cape York region

A new documentary, produced and directed by a former CNN war correspondent and former Newsweek boss, aims to shed light on an enduring Australian mystery.

Revealed: the Cape investigates the disappearance of fisherman Bevin Simmonds and his 10-year-old son Brad, who went to check shark nets one morning in 2003 in the Gulf of Carpentaria off the coast of Queensland and – along with their boat – vanished into thin air.

Justine Rosenthal, the former director of the news magazine who forms half of the film duo with veteran war reporter Michael Ware, spoke to Daily Mail Australia about her adventure in the hostile tropical landscape and isolated fishing community of Cape York ahead of the documentary’s premiere .

“There’s maybe nowhere in the world as remote and less understood as this area and it hasn’t been shown on screen like this,” Rosenthal said.

“It’s this wild, somewhat lawless region where most people have guns, but there’s almost no authority and no one to answer to.

‘We have tried to tell an intimate story in this vast, ancient landscape.

‘Almost like being in the pub with all those people; to get their take on the hardships of life up there and what could have happened to Bevin and Brad.”

Revealed: the Cape is available to watch Stan.

The couple, who moved from Australia to Los Angeles, released a documentary in 2015, the Emmy nominee Only the deadwhich focused on Ware’s years of coverage of the war-torn Middle East.

While the setting of far north west Queensland takes viewers a long way from the deserts and caves of Iraq and Afghanistan, there are some striking similarities.

In particular, the locals, who settled along the banks of winding mangrove-fringed rivers, clapped when confronted by outsiders, just as Afghan and Iraqi villagers would refuse to talk about the Taliban.

“They radio each other and everyone knows when someone else is around, whether it’s the police or the fisheries inspectors or whoever,” Rosenthal said.

“We knew it was going to be this kind of challenge going in there because it was such a closed community.

“We had logistical problems getting charter boats and people feared the consequences of working with us or partnering with us.”

Concerns about reprisals – the crew had to get a boat away from Papua New Guinea because no one would rent them – stems largely from the area being ruled by two commercial fishing dynasties.

Both clans, the Wards and the Gaters, are at the center of Bevin and Brad’s case – the latter is aptly named and led by an arrogant patriarch and his fearsome wife.

Bevin, who was an outsider himself and was trying to establish his own fishing territory, was married to the daughter of the ward, but she was rumored to be having an affair with the Gater’s son, Michael.

Michael and his mother Joan were tried and acquitted of the double murder of Bevin and Brad in Cairns High Court in 2005.

They were in a boat where the father and son were checking their shark nets when they disappeared and, as a former detective on the case said, the area is so remote there was “literally no one else around.”

The dominance of the two clans over the fishing community was evident to Ware and Rosenthal in making the documentary.

“The investigation showed that everyone, even the warring parties, would talk to each other that the police were around and we were no different,” Rosenthal continued.

“Even during the trial, there were people who were afraid to speak out.

‘That raised questions among the people we tried to speak to. Do they speak and at what risk? Do you think differently about that risk 20 years later?

“So we had to gain their trust… and then there is the indigenous community that we wanted to give a voice because this is their land.

‘We are outside our normal wheelhouse of war and geopolitical plans, but the questions about humanity and the people in these situations are the same.”

When asked what she would like the documentary to accomplish, Rosenthal said their focus was primarily on the victims.

“We had never committed any real crime, but we wanted the victims’ stories to come to light.

“There was the bawdy nature of it — the affair and the warring fishing dynasties — but we were focused on them.

“One hope is that we do justice to the memory of Bevin and Brad Simmonds in a way that has never been told before.

“We wanted to do more than a formal sense of unraveling a mystery, we wanted people to leave with questions.

And not just here in Australia, but for a global audience. People are fascinated by Australia and fascinated by the difference.’

While some parts of the documentary are undeniably somber, Rosenthal said there were also “angels” expressing courage.

“Bevin’s friend Rodd really exudes that sense of humanity. He really regrets not speaking out more.

‘HFor example, we heard someone say that if Bevin went to the nets one day, it would be easy to make him disappear.

“How many people have heard those things or heard other rumours?

‘He himself was an outsider who found peace with the indigenous community.

‘There was Bob Katter speaking about this jumps off the screen and can tell a great story when describing this frontier country.

‘I quote these people back in my mind and feel for them.

“With every new film we make, we hope that we have learned something from the previous one.”