New Year's Eve Improvised Friendship Drama Secures AVOD Platform.

Our first improvised feature, Friends, Foes and Fireworks, which was filmed in a single night on New Year's Eve, has just been released on TubiTV. Could the timing be any better? Tubi is one of the most popular ad-supported streaming platforms in the world where you can watch free movies and TV shows online in HD on any device. With many of our American friends still in lockdown, you can safely stay in this New Year's Eve with Friends, Foes & Fireworks. Watch here (US only). For worldwide options, click here.

Watch worldwide now, including TubiTV.

World Premiere Date Set for Sensual Drama Feature Film

In Corpore is the second ambitious feature film to be co-produced and co-directed by Ivan Malekin and Sarah Jayne Portelli and will be available throughout Australia on the Lido At Home streaming service from November 26th, with pre-sales opening on November 19th.

Entirely improvised, sensual, contemporary, and anchored by powerful performances by new talent from Berlin, Malta, Australia and New York In Corpore tells the stories of four separate relationships, each varied in their labels, each unfolding in different parts of the world. 

In Melbourne the polyamorous Julia strays from her monogamous marriage; in Malta Anna hides a secret from her husband Manny; in Berlin sugar baby Milana alienates her real life lover Rosalie, and in New York Julia faces the consequences of her affair.

The film explores the nature of commitment and the idea of sacrificing personal desires at the altar of love – is it selfish to follow the desires of the body and the soul or is this the only path to fulfilment? 

Even if it means hurting the one you love? 

View the trailer for In Corpore go to the films official page. 

If you would like to review the film, or to interview the cast and crew, contact Ivan Malekin and Sarah Jayne directly though this website.

Documentary on Stray Cats of Malta enjoys National Airtime

It was a pleasure to have been invited to talk and present our documentary feature film Cats of Malta on Animal Diaries. The lifestyle show, hosted by Moira Delia airs live every Saturday night on the Maltese National Television Station (TVM Malta) and aims to “raise community awareness of the vulnerability of animals and the importance of conserving Maltese species and other endangered species through educational experiences”.

A short clip edited together by the film’s editor and cinematographer Ivan Malekin was played at the beginning of the interview, giving audiences a small sneak peek into this feature-length documentary and this was followed up by a chat with director Sarah Jayne.

The episode, aired October 24th, is now online and you can watch the full interview with Sarah Jayne below.

Psychological Drama Wraps after Second Week of Production

If week one of filming Machination was a whirlwind, then week two was a hurricane with over 2kgs of worms, blood, moody neon lights, night shoots, early mornings finales and some wicked acting. But damn straight we had the best sleep deprived time of our lives in the process and came out the other end with a treasured film experience to add to our already unforgettable 2020.

Machination took four months of our lives to get from the outline writing to the wrap and we did it all with a minimal crew of no more than six on larger days and just a key cast of four people and had Maltese actor Steffi Thake featuring in 99% of the full-length feature. For those interested in our filmmaking process read how Ivan’s article From Writing to Wrap: Making a Feature in Four Months here.

After 10 days of filming Machination, we wrapped at Selmun Bay around 7am! Picture: Creative Creep Brand

Steffi may have had most of the screen time since the film is about her character Maria and her downward spiral as she deals with mental illness and her past demons during a global pandemic, but Steffi handled it like a champion. The lead actors performance was moving and sad to watch, at times her situation and reaction to what was happening around her was relatable, other times the absurdity of the situation bordered on dark humour.

So now Machination is now in the ‘to edit’ bucket, a task that Ivan Malekin will start taking on in the coming week, while also editing our documentary Cats of Malta simultaneously.

If you want to know more about Machination go to the films official page here and join our Creatively Connected Newsletter for news about the film exclusively here.

Machination Week 1 Done

Our latest feature Machination has just wrapped Week one of production. It’s a two week shoot, but we now have a week off to recover and rest for a moment before planning and prep begins for Production Week two. Machination is about a woman battling the monsters in her head during a global pandemic and stars Steffi Thake as Maria. If the first weeks rushes are anything to go by, it will be a very powerful performance.

We are thrilled with the results so far and grateful to the small but dedicated team helping us to make this film happen during a real pandemic here in Malta, part of the worldly global pandemic which inspired the writing of the Machination story. It may seem like a timely film, but it’s story more than what you see on the surface - it’s story about a woman battling mental illness, facing here past demons and how the two meet to break the human spirit.

Mental illness is a topic we need to talk more openly about as the monsters in people’s minds can be life threatening, and any event that is large and out of our control, spurred on by heightened media can feed anxiety and trigger symptoms for a sufferer. Sometimes with devastating results.

The beautiful thing about working so closely with Steffi in the improvised process from conception stage, from the very first story outline (that was more focused on the absurdity of conspiracy theories and the media hype surrounding such theorists views which emerged through the pandemic here in Malta), is that together, through research and advice from psychological professionals, the story of Maria and the monsters she is battling became more of the character piece we are interested in and can relate to. A big step away from the genre horror film we had originally envisioned, which we honestly were not sure we wanted to make.

The Machination we are filming now is relatable, it could happen to you or me and it’s a character study of a woman who, throughout a pandemic outbreak is being pushed to her mental limit due to the reality she has created in her mind.

Lockdown Inspires Filmmaking

It’s a crazy time, I don’t have to tell you that, we are all living through this COVID-19 pandemic hell and some of us are having a hard time more than others due to factors in our lives which existed before this hit. Some of us now are feeling the hardship suddenly wash over us as we loose our jobs, our income, our physical connection to others and our sanity.

To keep us going in lockdown and self quarantine we have been writing screenplays, developing ideas and shooting films. These films are short films which fit under our Life Improvised micro film banner and shot mostly in one location, with Sarah Jayne as the lead and Ivan Malekin as DOP.

The first one is called Hiding and is about a woman becoming more and more paranoid about the rise of COVID-19. She puts herself in self-quarantine as she battles her fear.

The second micro-short is called Hoping, and is a reflective look at our ‘new normal’ with hope for the days ahead.

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive these micro-shorts as soon as they are ready for release.

Improvised Micro Budget Indie Feature Film available on Blu-ray format →

Happy New Year! We hope you had a safe and memorable NYE and are ready to tackle 2020.

We are pleased to announce that our improvised micro budget feature film Friends, Foes & Fireworks is now available worldwide on Blu-ray via Amazon. Grab your own collector’s copy and watch with your friends, champagne in hand.

Featuring behind the scenes as well as deleted scenes, all in glorious HD, Friends, Foes & Fireworks is the ultimate New Year’s Eve film, filmed completely in a single night on New Year’s Eve without a script. How many films can say that?

Purchase your copy here now!

LesFlicks Love

Through our newsletters, particularly in reference to our feature In Corpore, we have harped on about the importance of finding a niche for your film and building an audience from the early stages of pre-production. We have been working on doing just this and learning 'how-to' for most of 2019. 

By having In Corpore connecting with and following suitable accounts on Instagram, we piqued the interest of one account – LesFlicks. And now In Corpore is listed on LesFlicks film database.

LesFlicks is Europe's first dedicated lesbian film platform that supports and lists short and features films about lesbian and bisexual couples on their website, and they also use their online platform to distribute these films. 

We have not signed In Corpore up for distribution, as we are still in the early stages of plotting our distribution map for the film, but having it listed on LesFlicks definitely puts our film in front of the right audience.

Check out LesFlicks here.

YouthMundus in November

Our educational film Daughter has been invited to be part of YouthMundus - A New Global Content & Music Festival Initiative for Youth, run and organised by a team of dedicated women who own and operate an international entertainment and media company, Inner Voice Artists (IVA).

Mid September, director Sarah Jayne and producer/ editor Ivan Malekin spoke with the Iva’s Founder & CEO Ina Petersen and Iva’s Head of PR Dijana Stupar, via a video chat in order for the IVA team to understand the background of the film and the final outcome we want for Daughter.

The chat was a success, with our goals for Daughter and IVA’s aligning perfectly - to use film to spread the message of how toxic violence against women and victim blaming is within our communities through the voice of today’s youth.

The first festival edition of YouthMundus runs from 14th to 17th November, 2019 at EX CASERMA GUIDO RENI in Rome, Italy, with Daughter screening in the humanity section of the festival, November 17th from 3.45pm, Short Film Screenings 6.

Tickets on sale now!

Our Lady in Netherlands

Some good news this month. Our first micro-short in the Life Improvised series has been selected into the MoziMotion Film Festival in the Netherlands, which runs from October 5th-13th. The improvised micro short stars local actor Marysia S. Peres as a woman waiting for her date at a Maltese festa, and was shot in Naxxar, right in the middle of the celebrations, marching bands, fireworks, spectacle. A lot of fun!

The teaching run continues

We are still riding high on confidence after a successful improvised filmmaking workshop for teens at Gozo Film Festival over the weekend. So it’s a great time to share that we have been approached by the Malta Film Foundation, who run the yearly Malta Film Weekend, to teach an improvised filmmaking workshop.

Our course will be for adults this time around and take place The Valletta University Campus, Sunday 15th September 10am - noon. For more details, go directly to the Malta Film Foundation website.

The whole weekend festival is a must for any filmmaker, with both short and feature films screening, plus workshops and discussions from local filmmakers happening over the weekend of 14-15th of September.

This was a lot of fun. For those based in Malta who have not made the trip across to the sister island of Gozo for the festival, we say do it!

On Saturday 24th after a late afternoon swim at Ramla Bay, followed by cave exploring in Nadur and an alfresco seafood dinner on a clifftop, we headed off to the Cittadella, where we enjoyed watching locally produced feature film Limestone Cowboy. It was past midnight when we returned to our AirBnb to rest so that we could wake early to prep for our Sunday morning Improvised Filmmaking Workshop for Teenagers, held at the same venue.

This is our third year in attendance and each year we are very happy that we made the trip down from Malta to watch films and be welcomed by really passionate and enthusiastic people who love film as much as we do.

And to teach improvised filmmaking, the niche style we love so much, to young students intrigued by the 'no script' process we developed was an absolute blessing. We played games, filmed scenes, and went over everything from different improvisation styles to developing ideas to filming without a script and more. A big thank you to Gozo Film Festival, its volunteers, and festival director Federico Chini.

We'll be back next year. But we'll be teaching another improvised workshop very, very soon.

FUNDED TO TAKE ON IMPROV IN BERLIN

Contract signed! Grant application successful!

Thanks to the Professional Development Grant from Arts Council Malta we will be going back to Berlin in October for five days to take part in an intensive workshop on Character Based Improvisation with Robert Marchand.

We are thrilled to have been chosen for funding and that the workshop generously held two spots for us as we awaited the results.

This year has been full of wonderful blessings and we now look forward to returning to Berlin to further refine our skills and love for improv in film.

Improvised In Berlin

While in Berlin during the most of the month of May we shot our fourth micro short under the Life Improvised banner, called Cry Me a River .

The story centres around one character who has just received some bad news and her the world goes on as she tries to process the news, shedding tears publicly, only to be ignored by strangers who she encounters.

Together with our small team made up of our friends in Berlin, we had a tight knit crew - Laura on sound, Robbert as DP, Kelsey as the main character, and Ivan and Sarah Jayne co-directing, plus two extras and a couple of on-the-spot participants we recruited on the day. Together we managed to shoot this micro short in just 3 hours at the gorgeous Treptower Park in Berlin on a perfect day.

We are very happy with the footage but It may be a while until we post it on our YouTube and Vimeo Channels as we have a backlog of projects, including the previous Life Improvised film shot in Melbourne called XChange to edit and share.

More news to follow shortly on this film and the progress.

TO stay up-to date and get this news first, including images we have not shared here on the website, sign up to our Newsletter - Creatively Connected now.

Ladinkino Cast & Crew Screening

When the cast and crew that had worked on the Berlin chapter of In Corpore stepped out of the Ladenkino cinema room there was one word to describe what they had just seen – intense. All round we had a wonderful night, not only catching up with everyone who attended, but also sharing all our hard work we had put into the film so far.

Although the film was still in a rough stage with more sound design and colour grading work to do, it was good to see In Corpore on the big screen with one of the four teams that made it possible.

Only two people were not in attendance due to having filming projects in other countries (so jealous) and they were greatly missed.

While it poured rain outside, inside we shared laughs and stories from on the set and it was a cosy cast and crew screening in gritty and artistic Berlin.

Daughter & Il KINO

When Daughter screened in Berlin’s Il-Kino as part of Grrl Haus Cinema’s Screen your Film in Berlin Seminar’, it was a mainstream affair due to Il-Kino being a more traditional cinema setting with a single screen. The audience was a mix of the general public people who attended teh first screening at LoopHole for the same Seminar. It was a medium size crowd and the film selection was a mash up of traditional film, docos, and mix media video pieces.    

On the big screen, the sound design from Mark Farrow was outstanding and really added an edge to the performances. Unfortunately the aspect ratio was incorrect, but that is something filmmakers have to deal with often. No questions came from the crowd to director Sarah Jayne, but host and curator of Grrl Haus cinema Anastasia did ask the director about her educational intent for the film.

Overall the experience was one ING and Sarah Jayne were proud to have had the opportunity of being part of. It’s always a thrill to have your work show to a neutral audience instead of your own film community and acquaintances, which was often the case at our Melbourne screenings.

Spreading the word about what you and your company do at any opportunity is something that we truly believe in. 

TO stay up-to date and get this news first, including images we have not shared here on the website, sign up to our Newsletter - Creatively Connected now.

Sarah Jayne centre, with fellow filmmakers including the other program participant Adina from New York on the right.

Hello from Berlin

Written by Director Sarah Jayne

What a fabulous time I am having in this wonderful city, Berlin. I am currently enjoying a mix of work and play and have found that it is a huge city with so much to see and do. My Airbnb is in Neukölln, which gives me easy access to not only a lot of wonderful middle-eastern foods, hipster cafes, but a very reliable train line to anywhere I need to go.

Riding through Berlin on Monday

The Grrl Haus official first meet-up took place last night and everyone is so lovely and creative, it is great to be in that space with likeminded identifying females. The other women all seem to be from America, mostly New York, which is really cool as New York is a city I also adored and felt connected with during my travels a couple of years back. I know have Grrl Haus merch that I will be parading around Berlin, a tote, some postcards, a few posters a brochure with my profile and picture in it and soon, I will receive my t-shirt.

For those in Berlin, the first screening of my work (and NPG’s) is on at the 15th May at Loophole, where we will screen the Berlin section of In Corpore. The second takes place at Il-Kino on the 21st May, where we will screen Daughter.

The Grrl Haus social media event banner for the first screening at Loophole.

There will be much to announce on our Instagram page as things progress, which is where I am uploading a video of the day as part of my 20 Days in Berlin series, which gets stored in Highlights afterwards. Plus I also post one picture a day of my Berlin adventure for that day, This is the best way to keep up-to date on the adventure.

Oblomov Kreuzkoelin Bar where the Grrl Haus first meeting took place.

Ivan joins me tomorrow, Wednesday 15th, just in time to come and show his support and work with me in Berlin for 11 days. On the 16th we also have a private cast and crew screening with our In Corpore Berlin people and on the 25th we will shoot our next Life Improvised story, reprising the complex characters of Milana and Rosalie from In Corpore Berlin section.

Skype meeting with Savo and Sarah for Malta to Berlin regarding Life Improvised

So many good things for NPG happening in Berlin. Please follow our progress on social media and if you want exclusive BTS photographs of the Life Improvised shoot, you will have to sign up to our newsletter.

Grrl Haus chosen for social media promotion of our film In Corpore (Berlin section only)

Mediterranean Love

Our director Sarah Jayne, who is of Maltese heritage made it into the Maltese press yet again, it was not the national TV station that broadcast us this year, but local online pop-culture news site Lovin’ Malta.

The press comes as the lead up to Friends, Foes & Fireworks screening at Spazju Kreattiv edges closer, and we are thrilled that our work got a mention, highlighting SJ’s roles within Nexus Production Group.

With the imminent release of In Corpore, which was partly shot on the Maltese islands, we are excited to show our work to a part Maltese audience in the hope to gauge their interest in Nexus Production Group’s work overall. Obviously being based in Malta, we would love a local fan-base who anticipate our films and that truly shows in the numbers.

Nexus Production Group look forward to the May 9th event at their favorite Art House cinema. There will be a talk on improvised filmmaking run by the directors, with an open to audience Q&A session, where the mystery of how to shoot a feature in one night will be answered, and much more. If you are in Malta, come join us by booking your tickets now!

BERLIN CALLING

NPG are happy to announce that writer / director Sarah Jayne is one of three artists selected to take part in GRRL HAUS CINEMA's 2 week intensive "Screen Your Film" seminar in Berlin with her short film Daughter.

GRRL HAUS is a space for underrepresented female voices in the arts today, with an emphasis on low budget and DIY artists, and their cinema program is celebration of women artists, showcasing works through ongoing programs, made up of short films and video art, created by women.

For GRRL HAUS’s monthly events a mix of local, national, and international artists present work from a variety of disciplines: narrative, documentary, experimental, and conceptual. And it is pretty much the same concept for the inaugural 2 week intensive "Screen Your Film" seminar in Berlin.

MONTHLY GRRL HAUS CINEMA SCREENING IN BERLIN - IMAGE GRRL HAUS CINEMA WEBSITE

Sarah Jayne will be attending in May from the 13th onwards, and during the two weeks, she has the chance to network at events set up by GRRL HAUS during the evening, explore Berlin and immerse herself in the city’s culture by day, shoot her own Life Improvised micro short and meet new people.

Two events Daughter and Sarah Jayne will be a featured part of are the main screenings - the first her own individually curated film screening (at a yet to be announced art space) where she has the chance to speak directly to the audience after the screening about the film. The second event is the main, GRRL HAUS CINEMA event, held at Il- Kino Cinema during the second week of the seminar, where all the artists take part in a Q&A after a screening of the films.

This experience is Sarah Jayne’s first major push of her work as am individual director, her first seminar and film networking event outside of Australia and an experience she, as well as NPG are looking forward to for many reasons.

Sarah Jayne hopes to document as much of her experience as possible, to create a small visual diary of sorts of her experiences. Of course, she will post regularly on her Instagram account. Let’s see if she can fit all this into her busy two week schedule.

Watch this space.

New Year, New Project

New Year, new film in development.

That’s right, while on a break to visit family in Australia we spent most of our lead up to Christmas plotting and planning a double shoot day for our new improvised, experimental relationship drama titled To Hold the Moon.

To Hold the Moon is an indirect sequel to Friends, Foes & Fireworks with Whitney Harris and Asleen Mauthoor reprising their roles as Lucinda and Summer, as we follow the relationship two years on.

What we needed to capture while in Australia was several images for a proposed poster and some footage for a teaser video as we prep for pitching the project to potential investors in Malta and apply for funding.

The double shoot kicked off at Lightdrop Studios Kensington, where our photographer Kristian Pirotta and hair and makeup artist Mirjana Laferlita helped us to create the concept art director Sarah Jayne proposed around the theme “the relationship between the Sun and the Moon”. Our team, including our acting duo perfectly pulled off all the concept variations and we all walked out of the shoot content .

We finished off the day shooting way past sunset with commercial DOP Daomay Keo and our talent on Half Moon Bay Beach. The theme for this shoot was more of a dream like sequence made up of quick shots, as if dreamt up by the character of Summer showing her ideal oasis with her lover, Lucinda. A short but sweet and dreamlike sequence to introduce our characters and tease about the storyline.

For now we work on completing both of these two creative materials for the film, plus the written documents and then we must move on to applying for funding through the Malta Film Commission, which opens in February.

In the meantime, give our To Hold the Moon Facebook page a like to support the film and also you you can join us on this exciting journey of bringing the film to life.