By FilmInk Staff
FilmInk first met writer/director Zane Borg when he was just seventeen-years-old and at The Capricorn Film Festival in Central Queensland to present his impressive short film Phantasm. Several years later, Borg now has a full-length feature film under his belt with the coming of age comedy The Library Boys. “The film is an autobiographical story about my own experiences in high school that I put to paper when I was 19,” Borg has told FilmInk. “As a 21-year-old film school dropout, it became my first feature length film, a challenge also taken on by most of our young cast. It was an entirely self-financed production, shot around my childhood home in the Western Suburbs of Melbourne, with the support of our community, friends and family. We had shared a common goal of creating an honest portrayal of Australian adolescence that we felt was lacking in cinema.”
Cast with young players, The Library Boys follows teens Zane, James and Mitch as they meet head-on the challenges of their final year of high school. Against-the-grain bad boy Zane becomes obsessed with Becca, the new girl at school. The more laidback James is being leaned on by Beth, his long term girlfriend, who wants him to take a little responsibility over his life. And in true teen film style, Mitch is just trying to lose his virginity, and in the process becomes involved with Tilly, the most popular girl in school. “It’s not just another teen movie,” says Borg. “That was our goal from the start. We didn’t want two dimensional characters. No jocks and cheerleaders. No females as sex objects. No thirty-year-olds playing fourteen-year-olds. If it wasn’t truthful, it didn’t go in the film.”
In an exciting new development for Zane Borg and his film, The Library Boys has been invited to screen at The Austin Film Festival on October 29, which will mark the world premiere of the independent Australian film, presented publicly for the first time in front of a Texas audience. The film was also one of five nominated for the festival’s Comedy Vanguard Award, decided on by a jury featuring Brit comic legend actor and writer Stephen Merchant (The Office, Hello Ladies) and producer Dede Gardner (Moonlight, Minari). “I couldn’t have asked for a better city to premiere this film in,” says Zane Borg. “It was films like Dazed And Confused and Slacker, stories intrinsically tied to the city of Austin, that inspired me to make The Library Boys. It feels like we’ve come full circle. I will be in attendance at the festival, joined by members of the cast Joe Kenny, Mia Barrett and Megan Douglas. It’s promising to know there’s an international appeal to our fundamentally Australian film. But we’re most excited for what comes after this, bringing the film back home and getting it out there for a homegrown audience to enjoy.
The Library Boys is handled by Odin’s Eye Entertainment for international sales. They are currently seeking Australian distribution. For all information on the film, head to the official website.
