Press release from FAD Productions
Last week, Australia’s newest and most youthful production company was launched at ACMI with the after party at Arintji in Federation Square, Melbourne. FAD Productions consists of Frank Bruzzese, one of Australia’s most respected young producers and David Forster, writer, director and ‘enfant terrible’ of Australian theatre.
Frank and David came together last year as the brains and heart of FAD and spent the summer producing their debut short film entitled ‘I Can Speak Swedish’.
David pitches the film as “A story for everyone who has ever felt a little bit alone” and it highlights the plight of a young woman’s struggle to find a place for herself in the world. The main character, Jane, happens to buy a used car and then begins to find certain Swedish themed objects in the car that lead her towards a happier and more connected future through a culture it seems she is waiting to discover.
David describes the experience of making the film as one of “pain hopefully followed by joy, a bit like giving birth for the first time. We were pregnant with this project before we knew it and now we’re 9 months in and just hope that our baby is healthy and lives on”
While Frank is more conservative and calls it “the most intense and rewarding experience of his life”
‘I Can Speak Swedish’ was shot over four days in January in over 9 locations. Frank recalls, “Our 1st assistant director almost collapsed when he heard the planned schedule but true to his talent made it run incredibly smoothly.” And one of those locations was IKEA in Richmond? “It was a real pleasure shooting in IKEA, it’s an amazing space to shoot with the all the colours and the sheer size of the store, and apparently nobody has ever shot a film in IKEA before so that was quite an honour,” says David.
When asked how they found the cast and crew, Frank says, “Many of them were contacts that David and I had and most of them were young, passionate, experienced people ready to go to the next level of their development and happy to work for peanuts.”
It seems youthfulness and passion are two of the key themes of FAD Productions as they chose ACMI for the launch and Arintji in Fed Square for the after party because they wanted somewhere that was “young and contemporary,” just as they aim to be. “We want our company to be a breath of fresh air, while maintaining the professionalism of a fully operational machine,” forecasts David.
So what now for ‘I Can Speak Swedish’ and FAD Productions? “Now we start putting the film out there and hoping that it gets a good run on the festival circuit,” explains Frank. “After that we are planning to shoot a documentary and also another short film that ties in with ‘Swedish’,” Oh, so a sequel? “Not exactly,” Interrupts David, “the original idea was a three plot intertwining story, with ‘Swedish’ being one of them. We found that it was too much to shoot that and too complex an idea for a good short film so we broke them up into three separate shorts.” And does the second film continue the Swedish theme? “Not at all. The link between the stories is that all the main characters struggle to connect with the world around them, the next story is a much darker tale about an international student.”
If the reaction from the audience after the film is anything to go by, FAD Productions seems to have positioned itself very comfortably and firmly in the category of clever, emerging filmmakers. This company is one to watch.