But as director Garth Davis enjoys the success of Lion - temporarily setting aside editing on a fascinating new film that has Rooney Mara as Mary Magdalene and Joaquin Phoenix as Jesus to join the Hollywood awards circuit - he recognises that something more important has been taking place. At screenings he has attended, Davis is seeing viewers being deeply affected by his film about Saroo Brierley tracking down his long-lost mother.

"They come up to me and they hold onto my arm and they tell me their stories and they thank me for the story that we've told," Davis says from Los Angeles. "I'm talking about parents that have adopted, people that have been adopted. I've had refugees come up to me.

"I've had mums and dads and teenagers - all of them find a part of themselves in this story and say how much it has moved them and how grateful they are that this is being told ... The dialogue that happens after this movie is quite extraordinary."

The only first-time director with a film up for best picture at the Oscars this year - a trained graphic designer who once took a year off to paint in Italy - Davis is naturally buzzing about the reception for Lion.

"I've had so many letters about the film bringing up emotions they never knew they had," he says. "I don't know if it's because it's a film about the primal connection we have with our mothers that it just unlocks everything. It's the love in the film probably, the unconditional love is a very powerful thing."

As he describes being immersed in the Hollywood awards season - the latest event being the glittering Oscar nominees lunch - Davis uses words like "amazing" and "surreal".

"The nominee lunch was fantastic," he says. "You had a bit more time to move around and socialise and connect with people. I got to meet Emma Stone and Casey Affleck and caught up with all the fellow nominee directors."

Davis' success is all the more remarkable for the fact he studied graphic design at Swinburne in Melbourne and later went to Italy to paint. "I basically just checked out for a while and just did painting and a bit experimental filmmaking," he says. "Then when I came back from that trip, I started directing commercials."

He moved into television - directing Top of the Lake with Jane Campion - before producer Emile Sherman saw him as the ideal director for Lion.

"I never wanted to be a director but I loved movies," Davis says. "My passion really was painting - I really wanted to be a painter - but my father bought me a Bolex camera for my birthday. I filmed some friends where I was living at the time and I cut this little sequence together.

"I projected it and I felt emotion. I suddenly realised that filmmaking was like painting. You could literally find an alchemy and a magic in an art-form. I just got completely obsessed with it after that."

Davis lives in Melbourne with his wife and three children, aged 12, nine and four. When he arrives home, with Lion having taken $16 million in cinemas in 18 days, he will get back to editing Mary Magdalene, which he shot in Italy. He says Mary and Jesus will be "very relatable, very human" in the film.

"It's going to be a film that people are going to connect with as well," he says. But as the likes of The Last Temptation of Christ and The Passion of the Christ have shown, there is also the potential for controversy with a Biblical story.

"You're not going to please everybody in this landscape so I'm sure there's going to be some controversy but it's not controversial really," Davis says. "I wouldn't have the same concerns as the other films before us, put it that way."

So how does he see Lion's chances at the Oscars on February 27, where it's up for best picture, adapted screenplay, supporting actress, supporting actor, cinematography and original score?

Davis thinks the film is picking up momentum during the award season.

"The odds aren't with us, that's for sure," he says. "But I think people are talking about Lion in a much different way than the other movies so maybe we could be a dark horse ... It's not a piece of entertainment; it's an experience this film."

Tanna back in selected cinemas

Marie Wawa (left) and Mungau Dain in Tanna.

The tribal romance Tanna, Australia's first nominee for best foreign language film at the Oscars, is back in selected cinemas in the lead-up to the awards on February 27.

According to Umbrella Films, Bentley Dean and Martin Butler's film, shot in Vanuatu, is screening at Melbourne's Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Lido Cinemas and Belgrave Cameo, with a Sydney cinema yet to be confirmed.

The film originally had a small release - just six to 12 cinemas way back in October 2015 - before it became a Hollywood awards contender. On the way to the Oscars, it has won best foreign film from the African-American Film Critics Association.

Next film for Lion screenwriter

Dev Patel with Luke Davies at a screening of Lion in Los Angeles. Photo: Getty Images

The cast is firming up for the next film for Lion screenwriter Luke Davies. According to The Hollywood Reporter, joining Steve Carell in Beautiful Boy is Timothee Chalamet who emerged as a rising star in the gay romance Call Me By Your Name at the Sundance Film Festival. Produced by Brad Pitt's Plan B for Amazon Studios, it's about a father dealing with his son's intense crystal meth addiction and recovery. Belgium's Felix van Groeningen (The Broken Circle Breakdown) will direct the film, which is partly based on the memoir Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction by David Sheff and a separate memoir by Sheff's son Nic. The film is due to start shooting in the US soon.

Lego Batman headed for strong US opening

Opening in North America: The Lego Batman Movie.

The Australian animation studio Animal Logic really started something with the surprising success of The Lego Movie three years ago. Directed by Phil Lord and Chris MIller and shot in Sydney, it took $US469 million at the worldwide box office and quickly sparked two spin-offs and a sequel.

The first of those movies, The Lego Batman Movie, opens in North America this week - we'll see it on March 30 - with high expectations. Variety reports that it's expected to top the box office with $US60 million despite hot competition from two sequels - Fifty Shades Darker and John Wick: Chapter 2.

A comedy that follows the caped crusader as he tries to save Gotham City from the Joker, Lego Batman features the voices of Will Arnett, Zach Galifianakis, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson and Ralph Fiennes. It has been winning rave reviews in the US with the critics aggregation web site Rotten Tomatoes rating it 98 percent "fresh". Warner Bros is releasing the movie in more than 3,400 cinemas.

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