by FilmInk Staff
Written and directed by Finn Middleton, Acid Amorè is a short comedy that explores the fears of love, after a boy receives a potential break-up text minutes before a psychedelic tab kicks in. (Starring Finn Middleton, Ryan Scott, Ethan Lamb Kelly, Haris Mirza, Cenk Orhan and Rhys Sherlock.)
This film was originally created for Tropfest, brewed up at a diner table in an Oporto (very high art) between myself and my mate Ryan Scott.
But like 90 percent of submitters… we didn’t get in. And for a moment, that felt like the end of it.
But in our hands, we still had a film that we genuinely loved.
After sitting in that post-Tropfest limbo for a bit, something shifted. I kept rewatching the film — seeing how much fun we had making it, how much of ourselves was in it — and it clicked. I liked it. My friends liked it. And honestly, that felt like enough reason to keep going.
So we did.
We started sending the film elsewhere, rethinking the whole plan, and just backing it — even when it felt like maybe no one else was going to. And slowly, things started to move.
The same film that didn’t make Tropfest is now heading into the festival circuit, including a selection at the Gold Coast Film Festival as part of SIPFEST.
In an industry that can feel pretty uncertain at times, one thing you can be sure of is yourself. Nine times out of ten, that’s all you’ve really got.
So, if there’s anything I hope other filmmakers take from this, it’s pretty simple: Grab your mates and make something. Make anything — and make sure it puts a smile on your faces while you’re doing it. Make something messy. Make something weird. Make something that probably shouldn’t work on paper and Don’t wait for permission — because it may never come round.
And if you genuinely believe in what you’ve made, even when other people don’t straight away, trust that.
Trust your gut a little bit.
Because sometimes that instinct — that little flame in your belly, that little voice that goes “nah, I rate this”. That is the thing that keeps a film alive.
Acid Amorè is produced by LadyBug Studios and Limitless Studios. Cinematography by Mark Robinson. Production design by Isabel Chau. Lighting design by Fu Liu. Makeup by Annie Stokes. Sound by Dimitri Gerakios. Edited by Jacob Farmer. Original score by Marcus Galic.
Finn Middleton is an Australian filmmaker and actor based in Sydney. Raised on the Central Coast, he moved to Sydney at 18 to study Acting at AFTT, graduating with a Bachelor of Creative Arts. Working across directing, writing, producing and acting.His work is character-driven and visually bold, often exploring heightened worlds grounded in emotional truth. Since graduating, Finn has worked on multiple screen projects, including two back-to-back feature films, and continues to develop independent short films with a focus on genre, atmosphere and emerging Australian voices.
