by Dov Kornits
“During the start of the pandemic, I was forced to come home, midway through shooting a series in America and just wanted to find a way to stay creative in my downtime,” says George Pullar, best known for his roles in A Place to Call Home, Fighting Season, Playing for Keeps and Barons.
“I had written plenty of stuff, but nothing that felt practical to make on a small budget, so I just set myself the goal of writing a simple, two hander short film, set in Australia, with a fun role for me to play, and ideally something I thought I wouldn’t naturally be cast in.
“At the time of brainstorming ideas, I had relentless construction noise going on next door and I found that every time I went over to confront them about it, I weirdly ended up trying to make friends with them and totally failed to confront them on the issue.
“This idea of not being able to confront others, and the consequences of that inaction, formed the central dilemma for my main character, Jonathon. I knew that I wanted to play in the dark comedy space and really push the story to a fun, even absurd, place, so I just kept asking myself: how can I escalate this problem for him, scene by scene, to the point that there really is this climatic ending of life and death stakes.
“It was a hugely ambitious goal for a first time filmmaker and I came to realise that as we filmed it, but I’m super proud of what we achieved.”
The film is Stonefish, which stars Pullar, Ben Oxenbould and a beautiful staffy, and the first time filmmaker is director Megan Smart, also best known until now as an actress (Home and Away, Secret Daughter, Measure for Measure, Standing Up for Sunny).
“George is my long time friend and collaborator whom I met whilst studying together at WAAPA,” says Smart. “We almost don’t make anything without running it by the other person first, so creating Stonefish was a natural progression of our relationship.
“We came to know [producer] Nonny Klaile and [consultant/mentor] Eddy Bell through colleagues who are experienced short film makers, [and] were on enormous help in getting this off the ground. Eddie and Nonny were the team behind the short film Giants, which has done incredibly well. This was the first time we had all worked together and their invaluable expertise and skill sets were so complimentary to those of George and myself.”
Is this type of dark comedic material something that they gravitate towards? “Surprisingly not at all!” answers Smart. “Up until this point I had mostly gravitated towards dramas – dark, sometimes disturbing, tragic dramas. But when George presented this script to me, I fell in love with the wacky world and completely original characters. The protagonist also had so much heart and goes on such a journey of growth, which are two things that are non-negotiable for me, whether I’m watching or creating films.”
This isn’t the last that you’ll hear about productions from these two, with Megan writing a dramatic short, and attached to direct a dramatic feature currently in development based on themes of identity, masculinity, limits and success. Whilst George is developing a comedy series based on the two main characters in Stonefish.
Based on what they managed to do with Stonefish, we cannot wait to see what they come up with next.
