Director Roderick MacKay poses for portrait photographs for the film ‘The Furnace’ during the 77th edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, Saturday, Sept. 5, 2020. MacKay had to get government approval to leave Australia and will spend a total of a month in quarantine because of coronavirus precautions but says it’s a small price to pay to bring his first feature film to Venice.

Director Roderick MacKay poses for portrait photographs for the film ‘The Furnace’ during the 77th edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, Saturday, Sept. 5, 2020. MacKay had to get government approval to leave Australia and will spend a total of a month in quarantine because of coronavirus precautions but says it’s a small price to pay to bring his first feature film to Venice.

Director Roderick MacKay poses for portrait photographs for the film ‘The Furnace’ during the 77th edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, Saturday, Sept. 5, 2020. MacKay had to get government approval to leave Australia and will spend a total of a month in quarantine because of coronavirus precautions but says it’s a small price to pay to bring his first feature film to Venice.

VENICE (AP) — Roderick MacKay had to get government approval to leave Australia, spent two weeks in preventive coronavirus quarantine in Rome and will be locked up in a hotel back in Australia for another two weeks upon his return.

But the 33-year-old director says it’s a small price to pay to get his first feature film,“The Furnace,” to the Venice Film Festival — especially after it took six years to make.

“The Furnace” explores a forgotten aspect of the 19th century west Australian gold rush, when Muslim and Sikh camel handlers from India, Afghanistan and Persia — Iran’s former name — were brought in by the British colonizers to help open up the Outback, many essentially working as indentured laborers.

“The Furnace” follows the story of a young Afghan cameleer played by Egyptian actor Ahmed Malek, who is led astray from his friendship with local Aboriginal people by a shifty gold prospector.

“It’s shining a light on a little known chapter of our history and representing community groups who have not really been represented in Australia’s history,” MacKay told The Associated Press. “And so I think on the basis of that, that was really the thing that compelled me to come here and do my bit to represent the film.”

That was no easy feat given the coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown of MacKay’s hometown of Perth, in western Australia, as well as Italy’s restrictions on travelers coming from outside Europe.

MacKay had to get federal government approval to leave the country, and successfully made the case that “The Furnace” was the only Australian official selection at Venice, where it is screening in the Horizons section for new talent.