by FilmInk Staff
From the producers of the homegrown international indie hit Birdeater (2024), principal photography has today commenced in Melbourne on LoveBirds, a feature film from co-creators Adele Querol and Jerome Meyer (Joe Cinque’s Consolation).
Created by Adele and Jerome, the real-life couple also star in the film, playing themselves as they negotiate the aspirations and disappointments of undergoing IVF treatment. Their intimate plans are thrown into disarray when a zombie apocalypse breaks out around them, abruptly cutting them off from the outside world. Suddenly there is no escape from a painful truth that they now must face together. “I know I’m not alone in this”, says writer and director Adele Querol. “LoveBirds is for all the women (and men!) quietly sitting in IVF waiting rooms, eyes downcast, desperately wondering if the future they dreamed of is possible.”
Part mumblecore, part zombie apocalypse, part body horror, LoveBirds is a gruesome yet intimate ride through the highs and lows of a relationship under enormous pressure. Of this strange blend of genres, director Jerome Meyer says, “we decided to tell this story through the heightened lens of horror because a purely realist narrative didn’t seem to capture the internal experience of our fertility journey. The ‘end of the world’ anxiety generated by a zombie apocalypse was what felt most truthful to the emotional stakes we felt while trying and failing to conceive.”
LoveBirds is a co-production between Breathless Films (Ben Ferris, Ulysses Oliver) and Strange Paradise (T.K. Williams, Lewis Robert). Producer T.K. Williams says, “as close friends of Jerome and Adele’s, Lewis and I have witnessed their daily heartbreak and support for each other coalesce into an on-screen chemistry and vulnerability that we believe is truly unique.” Breathless Films Producer Ulysses Oliver adds, “LoveBirds takes the unsettling uncertainty of infertility and sets it in a world that mirrors the very real sense of isolation and fear often felt by couples struggling to conceive. I’m excited to help create a production where honest performances and a vérité-inspired shooting style bring viewers close to the true terror and tenderness of human relationships under unimaginable circumstances.”
Shot in inner city Melbourne by cinematographer Carolina Izquierdo Duarte, LoveBirds will be a striking homage to black and white early horror films, combining a gritty mumblecore aesthetic with gore. Production Design is by Irany Turral.
