What they wanted was to celebrate a uniquely Melbourne world featuring a set of very diverse yet realistic characters, vulnerable or tough, mostly both. “We wanted to show what Melbourne is really like a city, show its diversity.” says Ireland. “The film is raw, there are realistic elements. We wanted to make it as believable as possible, about real characters.” The story is based around the day in the life of a pawn shop owned by jaded seen-it-all Les Underwood. There’s a love story at the centre of Pawno, with introvert Danny (played by Hill) hoping to catch the attention of Kate (Maeve Dermody) who works in the local book shop. “No, Danny isn’t me,” says Hill, about the character he wrote for himself. “He’s much more passive!’”
“Footscray has that ‘little Africa’ feeling,’” notes Ireland. “It’s the coolest place to work. Locals really took to it. People got involved; we got to know them as we went about with our trolley every day. Lentil as Anything (local pay-as-you-can restaurant) helped us out. The Barkly St Pawn shop let us use his shop front as a front-of- shop shot.” “We just put some signage up,” notes Hill. “We found the drummers because we saw a guy walking down the street – we asked him if he played the drums and he did and he knew another drummer – so that’s how we got those two guys. The process of making the whole film sort of went like that; things fell into place.”
Even the musical side of things came about smoothly. The sound track features songs from Australian hip hop outfit Astronomy Class, Australian singer/songwriter Vance Joy and a tune from the luminary Tom Waits, who was impressed by what he saw. “They have to look at whatever the music’s going to be set against so we sent him the clip, and he got back saying ‘I love it.’ He gave it to us for next to nothing,” Ireland adds.
The film is a DIY job from start to finish, with Ireland and Hill having done everything, including building the actual pawn shop themselves. “We didn’t have a penny” Ireland continues. “We developed the script together, and raised finances from independent people. “The shop was on Barkly Street in Footscray,” says Hill. “We had that place for six months; our production office was in the back of the shop!” “We finished filming on a Friday,” Ireland continues, “and on the Saturday, which was Christmas Eve, Damian and I we were in there with our friend Zak (to whom the film is dedicated), taking the set down.”
The script is strong enough to have interested performers of the calibre of Kerry Armstrong (Jennifer) and John Brumpton, who plays the lead character, Les. Once you’ve seen the film, it’s impossible to imagine anyone else playing Les. “I did a play with John years ago,” says Ireland. “I always had him in mind. Les is hard but he has a heart. He cares about Paige (Daniel Frederickson). She comes into the shop because it’s an oasis for her, she feels safe in there. She has all this hardship. Just walking down the street, she never knows when she’s going to be abused by strangers, but she still has the love of her children.” The two took a risk with the scene introducing Lai (Ngoc Phan). “We were very apprehensive about that scene!” Ireland admits. “We watched it with two female publicists, and we were nervous. It’s a fun scene, it’s a joke scene and we tried to lift it. Someone suggested that scene our male fantasy of a mail order bride but they couldn’t be more wrong. We see her as a strong character – Lai has her own business, she’s independent and she has a good heart. She keeps Les in line, she’s the only one who can, and they really love each other.”
Attracting performers like Brumpton and Kerry Armstrong was in itself a coup. “It’s an actor’s piece,’ notes Hill. “We got Kerry Armstrong for the part of Jennifer– her character has everything she could want materially, but she’s losing her son.” “She is the most generous beautiful actor, she gave us so much,” adds Ireland. “She’s a gorgeous soul and a gorgeous human being who really cares about her profession.” Hill reckons the two actors playing Pauly (Mark Coles Smith) and Carlo (Malcolm Kennard) enjoyed complete freedom. “First off they went way far from the script, they really riffed on it, then they came right back to it, and pretty much delivered what we had written.” Inevitably friends and family find their way into a local production like this, both Ireland’s and Hill’s partners make brief appearances along with Ireland’s son, and the talented daughter of Tony Rickard (Harry) gets a cameo as a child busker. “We heard her sing at a Christmas party so put her in the film as a little innocent touch,” adds Ireland.
Hill and Ireland talk about their film as having ‘a lot of heart.’ ”It’s a slow burn film. Once people get to see it, it will take off. We don’t have distributors; we’re doing it all ourselves,” notes Ireland. Pawno is about to premiere eat MIFF – the first local film to sell out, which it did in four days – tickets to Pawno were snapped up faster than any other Australian film – a very good start for a movie made entirely independently, and despite not (yet) having either national or international distributers, Pawno has already caught the eye of a few local and overseas film festivals. “In Perth there’s a big film festival with the richest film prize and we’re on the shortlist for that,” Ireland says. “We’re up against big studio films. The film is going to Brisbane, and we’ve been contacted by international people, from Budapest, and Paris, Asia and the Pacific.”
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
