Warwick Ross
Warwick Ross is the co-director of “Red Obsession,” a documentary about the skyrocketing prices of Bordeaux wine with the emergence of Chinese billionaires. After showing at Le French May earlier this year, the film hits cinemas on July 17. He tells Evelyn Lok about his sneaky film education, the making of the documentary, and his fascination with Russell Crowe.
HK Magazine: How did you get your start in film?
Warwick Ross: When I wanted to learn about film I went straight to USC [University of Southern California]. I never enrolled, I just kind of barged in and started taking notes. It was the brand new year, and I just walked in with all the other students. No one noticed for a week. But then the classes began to get smaller. The directing class only had about 12 people. The professor turns to me and says, “Are you enrolled in this course?” I explained who I was. I said, “I want to learn about movies.” A few days later, he grabbed me in the corridor as I was going between classes. He said, “I hear you’re sitting in on all the different classes. I’ve discussed it with people and we’d like to invite you to stay for the year and learn as much as you can.” I never paid anything, and he gave me a wonderful reference letter at the end of that, saying how I showed spark and ambition.
HK: Why make a movie about wine and China?
WR: I am a winemaker as well; I also have a winery and vineyard. [But the idea for the film came when] three years ago, I recognized Andrew Caillard, a Master of Wine, on a plane. We started talking. He said, “You’re a winemaker, and a filmmaker. Why haven’t you made a film about wine?” He began telling me about these price rises in Bordeaux in the last three or four years, and the impact of Chinese billionaires pushing the market. This new vintage coming up [that year] was also meant to be the greatest vintage to come in possibly 100 years, and there are only so many bottles. It began to feel like a perfect storm.
HK: What is it about Bordeaux that’s so alluring to China?
WR: If you’ve never had wine before, this is your introduction: Bordeaux is the romance, it’s the prestige, the glamor, the history, all of those things wrapped up into one place. It’s also very much a status symbol; if you present a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild worth a thousand US dollars, who cares what it tastes like? It’s the act of giving it. But that’s changing very rapidly. Chinese wine drinkers have shifted from Bordeaux to Burgundy, Burgundy to Italy. Now they’re discovering Spain and Napa Valley. And that’s happened in two years. They’re catching up at such an amazing rate: they’ve only had 15 years of wine appreciation, and the West has had 500-600 years.
HK: What’s the biggest difficulty about shooting a film like this?
WR: As you film a documentary, events keep happening. Twelve months after we started filming, the [Bordeaux market] crash happened. Every time something dramatic would happen, I’d get on an airplane with a camera. That’s why I was in Bordeaux so many times. Budgeting was a disaster! This film was self-financed to a certain point. My filming colleague had worked at a Macquarie Group bank: he went out and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for me within two and a half weeks. If he hadn’t done that, it wouldn’t be the film that we have now. That allowed us to finish, and also allowed us to approach Russell Crowe.
HK: How did you manage to get Russell Crowe to do the narration?
WR: I was originally doing the narration, but I was never happy with it. I wanted the voice of “Gladiator.” After showing him the film, he said “I’ll do it, but I can’t tell you when, because I’m so busy.” He was doing four films at once: We were down to 24 hours before the deadline. He was filming “Noah,” and Hurricane Sandy had just hit Manhattan so they had to rebuild the set and he had some time. He said he was doing “Les Misérables” in the studio until midnight, and would do my narration after. He started work at 1am, and finished at 3am, and it was perfect. His reputation is that he can be quite difficult, but he really is the consummate professional.
HK: What do you hope viewers can take away from the film?
WR: When people go into this film they’re expecting a wine film. And I’m hoping they are surprised by what they see. The film I’ve ended up making is really about the shifting of economic power from the West to the East. It’s really about the rising power of China, through the prism of Bordeaux. Wine has the ability to draw people around the table, but also has the ability to draw cultures together. Throughout this film, I kept getting reminded by Chinese people and by Bordeaux people, that wine is a conduit. It becomes a common language.