“The book grew out of the history of my own community, Bainbridge Island, on Puget Sound,” says Guterson. “Many of the Japanese Americans who live there were interned in 1942. But it also reflects my own personal searching. At the time, I was asking myself the same philosophical questions that are posed in the book: Given that we live in an indifferent universe where horrible things happen every day to innocent people, how should we conduct ourselves, how do we go on?”

It is this dilemma that faces Ishmael Chambers, caught between the two communities, fiercely trained by his newspaperman father Arthur (played in a flashback cameo by Sam Shepard) to seek after the truth, and battling social pressures, disability (he lost an arm in WWII), his own heart - and, for much of the book, the elements - to discover what really happened that night on board the Susan Marie. That is what gives the film its charge and its unique atmosphere. And that is what attracted Hicks to the project.

“The combination of an intricate story and dense atmosphere was irresistible,” explains the director. “The story is told through the gradual unravelling of several different mysteries: what happened at sea... in the war... what happened to Hatsue and Ishmael. I wanted the film to move seamlessly through its different time frames, like a knife through a slice of cake.”

Perhaps part of the attraction for Hicks came from the fact that the complex time-frame of Snow is not unlike that of Shine, the film which made it possible for him to work on this project. But Hicks is no overnight success: born in Uganda, he arrived in Adelaide by way of Kenya and England at the age of 14, studied drama at nearby Flinders University, moved over to film and graduated with a Honours degree in the late sixties. He then spent 20 years working in various film-industry jobs before directing a children’s movie called Sebastian and the Sparrow. That was eventually followed by two acclaimed documentaries, The Great Wall of Iron (about the Chinese Army) and Submarines: Sharks of Steel. Then came Shine in 1995, born out of his friendship with the movie’s subject, David Helfgott, and a fierce determination to see his story told on screen.

Hicks had first picked up a copy of Guterson’s novel at Orlando Airport and had wanted to film it immediately after Shine, but learned that Universal already had the rights. He didn’t catch sight of the project again until a couple of years later, when Ron Bass’ screenplay was among the projects he was offered.

This time, Hicks leapt: he knew just how he wanted to make the film. “Scott’s vision was so clear,” says producer Kathleen Kennedy. “People who entered the process later understood him immediately, and set about helping him achieve what he wanted. There was no way of being taken off-course.”

Filming began in October 1997, with Greenwood, British Columbia - an isolated town stuck in a timewarp in the Kootenays, just north of the US border - standing in for San Piedro, and New Denver, a few hours to the north of Greenwood, providing the location for a rebuilt Manzanar internment camp.