Suburban Wildlife, a new feature film made by a crew consisting almost entirely of AFTRS Bachelor of Arts Screen: Production students, has released its first trailer.
Directed and co-written by Imogen McCluskey, who last year was selected for Screen Australia’s ROAR initiative for her project Empath, most of the film’s other heads of department were female, including producer and co-editor Sophie Hattch, co-writer and associate producer Béatrice Barbeau-Scurla, and production designer Alexandra Culliver (all Bachelor of Arts Screen: Production).
Other AFTRS student crew members include cinematographer Lucca Barone-Peters, co-editor/sound team member Adam Shean, camera assistants Zac Hardaker, Davis Jensen, Parish Malfitano, Ramon Samson, Byron Smith and Sarah Meyn, art department assistant/stills photographer Lou Dietz-Henderson, art department assistant Lizzie Dingle, sound recording team Adam Boys, Oliver Brighton, Gavin Davis, and Aaron Healey, script supervisors Mikaeli Stanton and Katherine Williamson, and stills photographers Stephanie Bosnic and William Tran. Additionally Culliver and André Shannon appear in the film’s supporting cast, alongside dozens of AFTRS students as extras.
Feeling the lack of “a film that reflected our experience of reaching adulthood in this hilarious, beautiful and bizarre country”, McCluskey says her aim with the film was to capture the “suburbia of hot tarmac, brick houses, and messages scribbled on footpaths. Spending sweaty summers at public pools, joyriding at night through empty streets, and dreaming of being anywhere else.” The film was produced off the back of a successful $4,000 Pozible campaign and the passion of its volunteer cast and crew.
More information can be found on the Suburban Wildlife website.