IN spite of the rain over the Easter break, 15 young people from Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast dedicated their holidays to shooting a film near Nambour.
The 20 minute short film shot at Najara Centre for Spirituality and Chenrezig Institute for Buddhist Studies, and titled The Alternative Fate of Being, is another youth project from the Fig in the CITY creative workshop endeavour, a non-profit organisation for young people and their “at risk” peers. Providing moments of community, creativity and hope, Fig in the CITY is a combined workshop program developed by Brisbane based Fig Productions director, Shona Cox and CITY Theatre director, Michael Beh.
The Alternative Fate of Being film project follows the Mystics, Voices from the Real World poetry in performance project produced in December as a live theatre event at St Patrick’s Church, Fortitude Valley.
Director, writer and producer of The Alternative Fate of Being, Shona Cox, won several awards for her maiden short film Leviathan Krymer, in 1997. However all the other participants on the sket, aside from camera operator Rohan McCarthy, a first year film student, were newcomers to film-making.
A local cast joined Shona. Playing Rebecca, a stressed-out chocolate addict sent to a health farm, is lead actor, Alana Wilcox, 23, a drama teacher at James Nash State High in Gympie. The male lead, Will Wensley, 20, playing Ben, an idealistic young monk, comes from Nambour. The cast and crew, all of whom were volunteers, endured conditions in wind and rain holding tarps, umbrellas and sheets of plastic, protecting equipment and each other as nature sent herself to challenge the process.
The hard-working crew included five Year 11 students from St Laurence’s College, South Brisbane and recent graduates from Lourdes Hill College, All Hallows’ College and St Edmund’s College, Ipswich.
The Alternative Fate of Being is due to premiere in September and it is hoped it will be an example of what young Australians can achieve in a week of their holidays on a budget scraped from donations, with rain, wind and mud taking a major role.
Fig in the CITY can be contacted on figstudio@hotmail.com
