by Dov Kornits
“It’s based on my real life relationship with Mr. Rodrigues, who I lived next door to in Marrickville for maybe three or four years…” says filmmaker Milena Bennett about her short film Cactus. “We started off with a bit of mutual dislike of each other. He spent his days walking up and down the street. He knew everybody in the neighbourhood, and he was just a strong presence who initially I was quite thrown by. One of the first things he said to me was, ‘where’s the boss?’”
In the stressful midst of moving into her Inner West Sydney share house, Mr. Rodrigues made the comment to Bennett and her female friend, which did not leave a very positive first impression.
“And then I would be out the front of my house with my cat, and he would start making meow, meow noises at me. I was quite challenged by him. If he was home, you knew he was home. He was quite noisy. You just knew. There were a few days where I hadn’t heard him, and he was quite old, and I was worried that something may have happened. I knocked on the door and I told him I’d come to check on him, and he was just so delighted and overjoyed that I’d come. I think he was quite surprised. He invited me in for a drink. I felt from that moment on that I judged this person when I didn’t actually know him. It forced me to look inwards and reflect on how people do that to other people when yes, he’s different, and yes, there might be things that we don’t agree on, but I think it just made me realise that you learn from people like that, from people who are different to you. And really, we all want the same thing, which is connection.”
The lightbulb moment for Bennett and her partner/producer/co-writer Harry Greenwood to make the film came post-Covid, even though they’d written it before the pandemic. “It felt like a relevant story,” Bennett says today.
Securing a small grant from Inner West Council, with the rest self and crowd-funded, Bennett cast Tiarne Coupland in the central role, with the shoot lasting four and a half days. “What’s so nice about working with Tiarne and seeing her performance was, it wasn’t what I was expecting,” says Bennett, admitting that the role is based on her. “Obviously, you have expectations, especially if it’s about you, but she actually brought a softness to it that I wasn’t really prepared for, which was really, really nice. And I think that’s probably just because of who she is. She’s a really generous and kind human being. She just brought softness and a gentleness to the character that I wouldn’t have necessarily envisioned, but I was very grateful for it.”
For the role of Mr. Rodrigues, Bennett cast newcomer Antonio Goncalves, a first time actor of Portuguese descent with a music background. Alas, he couldn’t base his performance on the real Rodrigues, who has passed away. Though his memory is still present in the community where Bennett shot the film. “We filmed right around the corner from the house, and when people were asking what we were doing, and I would tell them the story, a lot of people knew Mr. Rodrigues, he was known around the neighbourhood. He’d been there for a really long time, at least 30 years. When he went to a nursing home, it felt like there was something missing on the street.
“I find community really important, and I think that if we lose it, with phones and technology, we become removed from each other. And if you’re able to connect, I think you get a lot out of it.”
Speaking of community, this is Bennett’s third film to be accepted into Flickerfest, Australia’s leading short film festival. “It’s one of the festivals I really make an effort to go to every year,” Bennett says. “It has been very important to me in my journey as a filmmaker. [Flickerfest Executive Director] Bronwyn [Kidd] in particular has been very supportive. You can tell that she really cares. She always makes an effort to talk to you and let you know what she thinks of your film. And I think especially when I was younger and first starting out as a filmmaker, having someone like that back you was very important for me.”
