Baby Banksia Delivers its First Film the Hard Way
by CHRISTINE YOUNG

Independent feature film Five Moments of Infidelity is currently the best kept secret in Australian cinema. Despite winning best film at DigiSPAA over a year ago, the film has not yet been distributed in Australia and is more than likely to have its first general release in New Zealand. DigiSPAA is the Screen Producers Association of Australia’s inaugural film awards competition so it’s a peer-based accolade.


 

The film’s writer, director and co-producer, Melbournian Kate Gorman, is not especially fazed about how its screening pattern has emerged. “It’ll get a release in New Zealand before Australia which is a bit strange but we’re still trying to finalise distribution here. I guess that’s the nature of an independent feature, it can take you down different roads to more traditional ones.”

Five Moments of Infidelity is Gorman’s debut as the writer and director of a feature film and it has already taken her to other parts of the globe.

It has been shown at four international film festivals: Idaho Panhandle in August where it won Best Australian Film; Salento (Italy) in September; Rome (USA) in September and Reel Affirmations (USA) in October. “It’s had its premieres internationally before locally which is bizarre but that’s the just the way this project has worked”, says Gorman. This is a common path for American independent features but less so for Australian independent films.

Gorman’s film explores the impact of infidelity for five couples from different backgrounds in one city. It boasts an experienced cast including Amanda Douge (Irresistible, Horseplay), Alex Papps (Head On, Home and Away) and Annie Jones (Newlyweds, Neighbours). Each set of couples has different rules about fidelity which not only gives the film dramatic tension but also shows that moral judgement almost becomes redundant, says Gorman.

“There’s a line that a character says which is that you just have to appreciate that people have different guidelines and that if people aren’t working under the same guidelines as you, you can’t judge them so I’m not really saying it’s right or wrong. However, somebody gets hurt every time so I think it’s always displaying that it does cause upset but do we judge or not for that? I don’t think we can, especially if you’ve not sorted it out yourself.”

Up until this making this film, Gorman (pictured left) had been running her own theatre production company, Baby Banksia, with her sister Charmaine who appears in Five Moments of Infidelity. Kate and Charmaine are from one of Australia’s most recognisable acting families – their father, Reg Gorman, has had a television acting career spanning more than 40 years and is probably best remembered as Jack the barman on The Sullivans.

 

 

Kate (pictured far left) says as a child there didn’t seem to be any other route than acting for her because, after seeing her parents on stage and screen, “I thought that’s what everybody’s parents did.” She points out that this was unusual 30 years ago because reality television wasn’t, pardon the pun, a reality back then. “So I thought that’s what everybody did and then it never occurred to me that I wasn’t going to do it or that I couldn’t do it. I always wanted to go to ballet and acting lessons and I just annoyed them till they let me do that and I think my sister was very much the same.”

Regardless of the family reputation and connections, Kate Gorman had to work studiously towards making the transition from theatre to film in recent years. She had only been on a film set as an actor during her 20 year career so she attended courses at the AFTRS (Australian Film, Television and RadioSchool) in order to hone her skills. From there, Gorman took on assistant director roles in the television series Blue Heelers and the film Your and Your Stupid Mate. When it finally came to making her own film, she was able to rely on her own reputation to bring some film industry heavyweights such as producer Don Linke on board.

“I hadn’t ever pulled in a favour in 20 years in this industry so I was able to pull in favours on this project which is why I have really experienced heads of department. They’re people who I’ve worked with and they’ve believed in me and believed in the project and that I was able to do it
I really enjoyed it and it was absolutely the right next step at this point in between changing nappies and doing dishes, doing a feature film was a good thing to do”, she says with a chuckle.

Gorman came up against many obstacles as an independent filmmaker with little financial backing but enjoyed the experience nonetheless. “I have really enjoyed being responsible for everything from first word on the page to finishing off the sound mix”, she says with enthusiasm.” But it’s the trials and tribulations which make the recent success all the more important and satisfying. They make a great story too.

On the Baby Banksia website, Gorman tells about a complete debacle of a day’s shoot at a newly painted and carpeted house belonging to a friend. After a day of disasters, shooting finally began but … “When we did start shooting we managed to scrape and dint the newly painted walls, grind prop food into the brand new carpet, break a bowl and we blew a fuse about every 30 minutes. At which point I needed to go and cry in the toilet. As I sat down I heard a huge grinding followed by a crack, ‘strange’ I thought, then as I flushed, water just went everywhere. I broke the toilet! Not just a little, right across the porcelain base where it attaches to the wall. Then I had to go out and confess to the crew, and call a plumber.”

 

 

The day of toilet trauma is but a memory for Kate and her friend though. “I did feel really bad about my friend’s toilet for a long time but she’s forgiven me now. That was an awful day.”

Throughout the filmmaking process, Kate was constantly reminding herself that a low budget film meant they had to do things tougher than some.


"I’d say to myself ‘why’s it so hard? and then I’d go ‘oh, it’s ‘cause you don’t have lots of money, you don’t have lots of people you can run to and say come on, buy me that whatever [it is] you need’. And because you don’t have a lot of money, you’re saying sorry a lot. The success of it has made everybody happy. It’s absolutely been worth it but it was hard. Next time, I want lots of money”, Gorman laughs knowingly.

If Five Moments of Infidelity continues on its current trajectory, she might just get it.