800 Words star Emma Leonard has written and will lead a new comedy feature that has begun filming in Sydney.
Directed by Claudia Dzienny, Scoby features Leonard and Ryan O’Kane as Maddie and Leo, an aspirational millennial couple who become unwitting custodians of a sentient kombucha strain while trying to decide between children and a career.
The cast includes Brigid Zengeni, Shakira Clanton, Gary Sweet, Jackie Van Beek, Johnny Nasser, Michelle Langstone, Stephen Madsen, Danny Adcock, Stephen Hunter, Jo Turner, and Duncan Fellows.
Dzienny and Leonard will produce through their companies Boobytrap Entertainment and Contra Stories, with Danielle Redford also a producer.
Maslow Entertainment’s Marc Wooldridge, Spectrum Entertainment’s Josh Pomeranz, and Folklore Sound’s Sam Gain-Emery are executive producing with Thom Kellar and Bevan Dally. The creative team also includes DOP Calum Riddell and production designer Emily Jansz. Mind the Gap, Spectrum Films, and Folklore Sound have provided finance.
Dzienny said the film’s production had been “a daily joy”.
“This project lights me up,” she said.
“Emma Leonard’s script hilariously nails the conundrum of career vs family that has plagued me as a new mum. Fear of missing out and totally buggering it up at both ends, mostly. Would I be terrible at it? Would I lose the independence that I had built my career and identity on? Who would I become? My sense of self would be intrinsically linked with my children and partner. That was scary but exciting and something that I had always longed for. I have learned that in motherhood, the only way forward is together. Maybe giving ourselves a chance to relinquish some of that inner lone wolf and lean into a little symbiosis, we can grow happier in unexpected ways.”
Leonard described Scoby as “a bold genre-bending relationship comedy from the heart”.
“Director Claudia Dzienny and I have been fostering a creative alliance for over a decade, developing projects together and finding our comedic voice,” she said.
“We’ve always had the goal in mind to create the kind of film we want to watch.
“As friends, we’ve often found comfort and humour in the vast swathe of conundrums this stage in life presents us with. Our balance of pre-parenthood and new-parenthood perspective has brought genuine nuance to the story throughout our development process together.
“I know we have something special here: an opportunity for our audience to reflect on what really matters delivered in a very cheeky package.”
Maslow Entertainment will distribute the film in Australia and New Zealand.