.It will be a strange experience,. says Australian filmmaker Michael Rowe as he prepares to direct his first English-language film, psychological drama Rest Home, in Montreal.

Rowe.s screenplay follows a security guard in a retirement home whose life spirals out of control when he catches his wife with a lover, pushing him to the brink of insanity.

It.s a Canadian-Australian co-production between Serge Noël.s Possibles Média and Trish Lake.s Freshwater Pictures, with investment from Screen Australia and Quebec.s Sodec fund.

Rowe has lived in Mexico City since he landed there 19 years ago when he was 23 with $76 in his wallet, motivated by what he drily terms as a mixture of .youth and stupidity..

After earning a crust variously as an English teacher, journalist, screenwriter and teaching screenwriting at a film school, he wrote and directed Año Bisiesto (Leap Year), a zero-budget drama shot, entirely in a...