After a humble festival run, Roniti, our mother-daughter driven coming of age short film we shot on Croatia's Dalmatian Coast has finally found a home.
Roniti will be released on the Crafty YouTube channel on May 7th, just in time for Mother's Day. We’ll have a link to watch the film on our website once it is released.
We have just returned home from a road trip from Zagreb to Berlin and Prague to finish our feature film, After the Act, as well as shooting a new Life Improvised film called Sugar.
For After the Act in Berlin, we were adding pick-ups and filming new scenes, expanding the story after reviewing the edit and realizing it needed more work. The shoot had it all; fresh locations, new faces, reunions with cast and crew, challenging bike shots and moody aesthetics, plus loads of moments and laughs!
Filming pick-ups in Berlin for After the Act
On the way home from Berlin, we stopped over in Prague to film Ivan Malekin's moral dilemma short film Sugar. The film is about Roy, a middle-aged father, estranged from his daughter, who spends a day in Prague with Karolina, a young woman he met online, navigating a complex web of loneliness, longing, and unspoken truths.
It was wonderful to film in the picturesque and surprising Bohemian capital, a city we fall madly in love with after every visit. Getting to work with actors Dalia Cohen and Owen Lindsay for the first time and local make-up artist Stefaniia Shchepankevych was also a massive positive.
Expect more updates about After the Act and Sugar as we complete post production.
In the magical city of Prague filming Sugar
We’re thrilled to announce that our 15 min Croatian language film, Roniti has been selected for the 21st IN THE PALACE International Short Film Festival.
Part of NPG’s Life Improvised Series, the performances by the small cast were improvised, working off a concept written by Ivan Malekin. The story for Roniti was inspired by summers watching divers at Kolovare beach in Zadar and explores the tension filled relationship between a mother and her teenage daughter while away on a weekend trip.
IN THE PALACE IFF is an Academy Award qualifying film festival that has been running for 22 years and takes place at the Palace of Culture, in the town of Pernik, Bulgaria from June 29th to July 6th, 2024.
At this stage we are not sure when Roniti will screen, but we are planning to be in attendance.
Roniti trailer
We just wrapped on our latest short film in the Life Improvised series, called Roniti, and we couldn’t be more thrilled. Roniti means "diving" or "swimming underwater" in Croatian and is about a mother and daughter holidaying in Zadar while navigating their strained relationship after a family scandal.
The team was small but amazing, wonderful camaraderie, and when dedicated people come together for the common goal of creating art we can all be proud of, it always serves as a beautiful reminder of why we make films. Here is a fun behind the scenes video about the shoot.
The Dance screened at two events last week. The first screening was a Kino Lab Zagreb on Feb 8th. This was the first time we got to see the film in front of a live audience and it was a great experience.
Sarah Jayne presenting the film
The second screening was on Feb 10th at the Audacity Film Festival in Melbourne. Cast and crew for the film were in attendance as well as Nexus team member Ante Malekin. From all reports, it was a fantastic night.
We are grateful to both events for the screenings and proud that The Dance is connecting with audiences from one side of the globe to the other.
Actors John McCullough and Lara Deam with Ante Malekin
The Dance on screen at the Audacity Film Festival
While visiting New York during late October we got together with NPG team member and favourite hard-working collaborator Clara Francesca, as well as our DOP from In Corpore, George M. Ivanoff, to shoot our eleventh Life Improvised short film called Applause.
The story was inspired by a mash up of real encounters and conversations with an "actor" we knew many moons ago.
Applause is an exploration of what it looks like when the line of professionalism and friendship becomes blurred due to one friend using the other selfishly for her own career gain.
The shoot took place in the picturesque Central Park. What was great about shooting Applause (besides the therapy factor!), was that it served as a reunion with Clara and George, plus the chance to work with new talent, Sharni Bekt – an established NY based dancer and actor.
Check out Applause below and be sure to let us know what you think by liking and leaving a comment on the video.
Festival number four for our queer film The Dance comes from India. Big thanks to Color’s of Love Int. Queer Film Festival for the Official Selection of this film with an important message for those coming out later in life. This is the 5th edition of the festival and it will take place in Punjab, India, as well as online. We are thrilled to see The Dance getting out there.
Goose & Gander from our Life Improvised series was the first film we made in Zagreb, so it was a thrill to be selected to screen at the first Kino Lab Zagreb event. It was a fun night, with sixteen films from around the world screened, some even from Melbourne. We look forward to the next event.
We’re excited to announce Life Improvised: Volume One is now streaming on Tubi.
Sometimes in life we need to improvise.
Filmed in five countries around the world, these improvised stories are about life and love and the complexities of being human. Micro glances into everyday relationships and the small decisions that define us.
Awkwardness, betrayal, love, forgiveness, despair and more. We filmed these stories over a period of three years, never thinking we would one day have enough to put together an anthology. But here we are. And we just filmed a new episode in New York last week so in another three years, expect Volume Two
Check out the trailer below and check out Life Improvised: Volume One on Tubi here.
We also did an interview about the anthology with Search My Trash which you can read here.
We just wrapped production on a new episode in our Life Improvised series, filming in gorgeous Central Park in New York. It’s called Applause and deals with an actor pushing a director too far when talking casting opportunities.
It was a reunion with Nexus member Clara Francesca and In Corpore DOP George M. Ivanoff. We also worked with talented actress Shani Bekt for the first time. A lovely way to spend a sunny afternoon. Look out for Life Improvised: Applause on this website and our YouTube channel soon.
The cast and crew of Life Improvised: Applause
POSTPONED - New date announced soon
Tune into Joy FM's Sunday Arts Program, presented by David Hunt on Sunday 7th of August at 4pm to hear John McCullough and Lara Deam discuss our short Life Improvised film The Dance. The pair will be will be taking about queer stories in cinema, the film, the improvisation process and what it was like making a film about acceptance and living authentically.
We found ourselves stuck in Portugal during the first half of 2021 as our flights home to Malta kept being cancelled during the pandemic. Naturally, we needed to film something. So we came up with the concept for Encontro (meaning meeting in Portuguese), put out a call for actors, and quickly cast two talented Lisbon locals in Rachel-Hannah Strong and Denise Santos. Just over a week later we were on set using the new Ronin RS2 gimbal we had purchased, and with only a two-person crew we walked through Lisbon capturing various stunning sites on a sunny Saturday afternoon.
“With the lockdown lifted, life goes somewhat back to normal. Inés seizes the chance and invites her friend Joanna to catch up, but as they walk through Lisbon, there’s something troubling Inés.”
Enjoy Life Improvised: Encontro below.
Last month we finished Life Improvised: Hiding, a bleak look at the fear and anxiety caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, filmed during lockdown. But now we are proud to share a more optimistic reflection on the pandemic in Life Improvised: Hoping. Again, it stars Sarah Jayne with Ivan Malekin the only crew, but this time though we tackle fear and uncertainty we also want to present a message of hope and resilience. Life goes on and we can make the best of a bad situation if we embrace the lessons that can be learnt.
We filmed a couple of micro-shorts as part of our Life Improvised series while in lockdown. This is the first, Hiding, about a woman in isolation struggling to cope with her mounting fear.
Regular Nexus director Sarah Jayne takes on the starring role in this film inspired by a feature we are developing called Machination about a woman slowly breaking down during the pandemic. One actor, Ivan on camera and directing, our smallest micro-short yet, but one we enjoyed making and which allowed us to exercise our creativity despite restrictions. Watch below.
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!
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.
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Our latest micro-short First Impressions has just been released.
Mike West stars as Adrian, a man trying to move on with love and life after a messy divorce. He has a first date with Gabriela, a free spirited student played by Natalia Krekhtiak, but what type of impression will they make on each other?
This is our second film as part of the Life Improvised series telling small human stories, entirely improvised, capturing the moments that make up relationships, the awkwardness, the joy, love, despair and more.
Check out a small 30 second teaser for First Impressions below and watch the whole film on the Life Improvised page here.
We filmed this in the beautiful Lower Barrakka Gardens in Valletta and are very grateful to all the cast and crew who helped get this made. We are happy with the result and are enjoying filming these small stories, working with new people, exploring the moments that make up life.
Enjoy First Impressions. And stay tuned for the next micro-short in the Life Improvised series.