Ivan Malekin & Sarah Jayne Portelli - Friends, Foes and Fireworks directors' exclusive interview

MALEKIN: It was a couple of factors actually. The first was frustration. We had just completed a big short film backed by council funding called "Half" for our "Made In Melbourne Film Festival", but it was a difficult shoot in the country; cold, rainy, politically-charged and driven by egos. It was a classic case of too many cooks in the kitchen — five producers and a director and partners of producers all with something to say. It was a tension-filled production, one neither Sarah nor I enjoyed. So we wanted to make a film to rediscover our love for film again, as working on Half made us question our motivations and if we wanted to keep working as filmmakers. We wanted to keep creating because we enjoy telling stories, but we wanted to be free of expectations, traditional structure and rigid rules. We wanted to work with a small and intimate team we trusted. While the New Year's Eve storyline was the result of reflection on past celebrations. The night was always so full of hype, but for us it was invariably a letdown, crowds and drunks and disappointing parties and boredom. So we thought, let's do something we typically enjoy on NYE instead - let's make a film. Once that idea and storyline was established it was a natural progression to film it all in a single night as the filming would mirror the story. So we had committed to making an improvised film, on NYE, in a single night. Now we had to work out how we would do it.

PORTELLI: There are so many beautifully flowing scenes between our female leads, but the one that always stands out the most for me is the scene I directed, which is the park bench scene after the fireworks. We see Fiona not coping with her negative health diagnosis and she wants to tell someone. But she is also going through an anxiety attack due to her friends arguing throughout the night and her plans for a smooth reunion turning to crap. Fiona and Sofia sit on a bench reflecting on the revelations that have just unfolded and Sofia, having her own secret, cuts off Fiona mid-sentence just when she is about to tell Sofia about her cancer diagnosis. This leads to a confession from Sofia about something they may hurt Fiona, but it's not the reason why Fiona breaks down sobbing. I like this scene for the acting, which is very raw. I love the dynamic between the actors and the way the dialogue flows, but I also like it because if you were watching closely you would pick up the real reason why Fiona is breaking down in tears. It shows how, sometimes, you really are all alone with your problems and it makes you question who your true friends are.

PORTELLI: Ivan and I told the actors straight up what we were wanting to do and achieve and that we wanted it all filmed in one night. So we were all on board for a wild ride and an improvised experiment of sorts, with the aim to have fun on NYE. It was a simple 'are you keen to experiment?' yes or no situation. MALEKIN: In regards to casting, the first three actors we offered roles to said yes instantly. The last two we had to think about a little more as we needed the right fit for the roles of Sofia, the older friend and acting teacher, and Summer, the naïve theatre actor and playwright, who has a crush on her friend Lucinda. When we approached the actors we believed to be right for Sofia and Summer, again there was no hesitation on their part, just excitement about the challenge. With the only male role, we did have an actor pull out early in the rehearsal process due to feeling like the improvised nature of the film didn't suit him. So Sarah and I put our heads together again and looked for an actor with improvisation experience and managed to find a replacement, Dan Hill, who was instantly keen and great as Taron. And it was truly a pleasure to work with all the cast. They are super talented, committed, and they bought ideas to their characters and really made the film a success. PORTELLI: True, Ivan and I thought long and hard about who we wanted to work with on this special project. We established early on that it had to be actors we had worked with before, or who's work we admired, who we trusted to commit and who had the talent as well as the professional manner and the drive to see it though. By see it through I mean, not just the one day shoot, but the whole character build up, which was time consuming and needed a lot of work due to the improvised nature. We wanted no egos on set and no complications or disbelief in regards to what we were doing and what we needed to achieve. We were blessed to have Genya Mik, Asleen Mauthoor, Jess Riley, Lara Deam and Whitney Duff as our lead female actors and Dan Hill as our only male character. Each and every one of their efforts and the commitment they gave to this film in pre- production has benefited their performance and that shines through in the footage we captured.

MALEKIN: A story worth mentioning was the fact that throughout the pre-production we kept Dan Hill, who plays the film's only male character Taron, away from the other actors, except Whitney Duff, who plays his love interest Lucinda Lee. This is because in the film he is a stranger and if the actors went on to build a relationship with him before shooting the dynamic would not have been what we see on screen today. So the other women all met him for the first time when he walked into the scene with the cameras rollings, catching their real reactions. They were also fooled by his British accent as he didn't drop it all night long – they didn't realise he was actually Australian. PORTELLI: Speaking of Dan, he also accidentally locked us out of the apartment location. It happened just as we were done with shooting in the apartment and on time schedule wise. We were on track to shoot the montage scene through Acland street with all the actors, which would then take us to our next meet up spot to get transported to the beach. I remember standing outside the apartment block downstairs with all the actors wondering how we were going to get the keys. Luckily, we were shooting on the fourth floor and there was a communal private courtyard area and the bedroom window was slightly ajar, so we slid the window and climbed in. So lucky!

PORTELLI: From the beginning of the marketing stages we focused a lot of the fact that the film was improvised and shot in one night, so in a way that has now become the talking point at screenings. Aside from discussing the filmmaking process, what we hear a lot about from audiences at every screening is how much people enjoy the stories of the female characters, each one different and dealing with their own issues, which are also relatable to the viewers. The acting is also mentioned as a stand out and the actors praised for their skills of just diving in and making the characters believable, layered and complicated. Most of the time we get people tell us how annoying Dan Hill's character Taron is throughout the story. We have to agree there, he is the cog thrown in for tension purposes and it worked perfectly, I don't really like Taron either and I wrote him based on male qualities I personally despised and experienced firsthand.

MALEKIN: We have our second improvised feature film titled In Corpore in post production which we shot two years ago while we were moving from Melbourne to Europe. We produced and shot the film in Malta, Melbourne, Berlin and New York, and again In Corpore was co-written, co-produced and co-directed by Sarah and myself. The film is a completely improvised, independent drama which delves deep into the grey areas of relationships, exploring how four couples deal with love and lust, commitment and infidelity, and traditional expectations versus self-gratification. Three out of the four relationships deal with a monogamous partner loving a polygamous partner and the pressures that places on their love, while the last relationship is a traditional marriage, a more common and contrasting structure. But the married couple still have to deal with the expectations of commitment. In a nutshell, In Corpore demonstrates it's not the relationship label or structure that is the issue but rather human nature and our inherent flaws that sabotage relationships. PORTELLI: We are currently living in Malta and have just hit two years now of island life. So in addition to In Corpore we have always wondered since shooting Friends, Foes & Fireworks what happened to Lucinda and Summer's relationship – did they or didn't they? So we combined the question with our current situation and we are currently working on an indirect sequel to our first improvised film. The film is called To Hold the Moon, and it will be prominently shot in Malta, with opening and closing scenes to be filmed in London, where the characters of Lucinda and Summer now reside. We are seeking funding through the Malta Film Commission, so right now we're prepping for the application process. It is a heavy application, like all feature film projects, but we have done this long enough to stick it out as we believe in the story of Lucinda and Summer. The story is a travel romance of sorts, a lesbian drama film, focused on the journey of the characters and their individual growth and self discovery while they are visiting Malta together, but each for separate reasons. We are excited by the story and looking forward to getting To Hold the Moon off the ground.