7 days ago
Sophie Somerville wanted her debut film Fwends to 'normalise being an Australian woman'
Emerging Australian filmmaker Sophie Somerville is about to premiere her debut feature film, Fwends, at the Sydney Film Festival. It's the same festival where she was previously lauded for her award-winning shorts, Peeps and Linda 4 Eva.
But Somerville — who, like most Australian creatives, already has one eye on her next project — finds it difficult to slow down and soak in the success of her work.
"It's easy to forget that it's real, and then you're like, 'Shit, everyone is going to be watching my movie,'" she tells ABC Entertainment.
"It's always a little nerve-wracking because you can't change the film, the film is done. You just have to kind of endure it while everyone else takes it in."
Somerville is, of course, being delightfully humble. Her poignant and hilarious rumination on female friendships is fresh from being accepted into the prestigious Berlin Film Festival, where it took home the Caligari Prize for "stylistically and thematically innovative film".
Later in the year, Fwends will feature in the Melbourne International Film Festival.
"It is ramping up now," Somerville says.
On the surface, Fwends masquerades as a traditional buddy comedy. Sydney-based lawyer Em (Emmanuelle Mattana) travels interstate to visit struggling Melburnian Jessie (Melissa Gan), to rekindle their friendship and go on an adventure through the city.
But the vibe of the film will be intensely relatable for any person who has tried to revive a long-term relationship with a long-distance best friend. The connection of shared experience between Em and Jessie remains, but how they've changed over time creates friction for the young women.
"It's fun to explore the layers of that kind of relationship: you have this surface level where you fall into those old patterns, [but] it just inevitably creates this pressure cooker until they actually witness each other in the present," Somerville says.
"We thought, 'Let's start with two people and see them on the surface, and then just wear them down.'"
As the two women traverse the city, they talk about everything — from the increasingly unmanageable cost of living to if they're really good people. They're familiar conversations refreshed by Em and Jessie's local takes.
"I remember watching [Girls] and being so obsessed because you do feel seen as a young person, but then at the same time, they're these privileged girls in New York who have access to this kind of lifestyle that we just don't have," Somerville says.
Drawing on her past experiences in short film, Somerville abandoned the rigidity of a traditional script, instead opting for an almost entirely improvised narrative. The director wrote the background and worked with Mattana and Gan to flesh out their characters, but the dialogue was completely improvised.
"We had a pretty clear idea of what they were going through, the sort of core conflicts that they had going on inside and we needed them to reach a cathartic moment towards the end of the film," she explains.
"But it was pretty loose with how they got there and when they got there."
Operating on a minuscule budget and even fewer resources, Somerville and her small-but-mighty production team had to get creative to capture the beautiful and varied shots of inner-city Melbourne.
"Even though the film is fiction, we approached it like we were shooting a documentary," she says.
"Melbourne City Council had some really lovely filming permit rules where, if you have a small number of crew, you don't need a whole complicated film permit. So we just worked around that."
Wide shots using long lenses give the action a guerilla feeling, like the audience is a secret passenger on Em and Jessie's physical and philosophical journey. That's not to say the documentary-style filming didn't throw up its own complications.
"You'd have random kids who walk past and give the middle finger to the camera, old people who come up to you and are like, 'Oh, are you making Today Tonight?'" Somerville says.
"It's awesome, though, because you come home with footage that is so rich and detailed. It's a really beautiful way to observe the world."
As Em and Jessie's journey progresses, their interactions go deeper: long-held grievances are shared and situations are re-examined.
A story from Em about her boss getting a bit too handsy — which was sarcastically brushed away by both women in the daylight hours — is given the weight it deserves as the sun sets and their barriers break down.
At the same time, Jessie's casual break-up is revealed to be more complicated than she previously let on.
"They were issues I was dealing with when I was writing background, so that was built into the characters. But I was also aware it's like two of the main things women experience," Somerville says.
As Fwends made its way around the European film circuit, it collected rave reviews. But it also picked up a label that Somerville chafes at: mumblecore. A staple of the early and mid-2000s indie film scene, the genre is famous for improvised dialogue and lackadaisical narratives.
"It just implies that it's this low-key kind of film, and the film's not low-key to me. The film's a big deal for the characters who are living it," Somerville says.
Ultimately, she's grateful the uniquely Australian film resonated with international audiences, and she's hoping its warm reception will continue closer to home.
"[As a new filmmaker] it's really, really easy to be very discouraged and to think that your voice isn't going to be commercial or isn't going to be listened to or taken seriously, but I just knew that we had to make [Fwends]," she says.
"I wanted to make a movie that takes on these dark themes but makes you want to get up in the morning afterwards. That just makes you feel not alone."
Fwends will premiere at the Sydney Opera House on June 7, with additional screenings on June 8 and 10 as a part of Sydney Film Festival.
