Shortlisted Shorts
Boyd Wonder
‘Sometimes lying to the blind and elderly is a good thing’.
Boyd Wonder was a comedy/drama short film project, and a version with more of an adult flavour than the
subsequent YA incarnation that grew into the novel Dog Boy Freak and the Serious Fooling. It was shortlisted for Screen NSW Production Funding with producer Jiao Chen (now Vice President of Creative Development at Sony Pictures Entertainment Los Angeles).
The attached cast (with deal memos secured) included Lynette Curran (Emily Kipfler), a young Rahel Romahn (Boyd Pearce) and Jeanette Cronin (Marcia Pearce).
Boyd Wonder - Synopsis
When serious young Boyd is given the job of ‘seeing’ for cantankerous blind Emily, he finds himself caught
up in an escalating stoush between the old woman and her neighbour. Fighting his own battles with the
school bully, Boyd is surprised to find that sometimes lying to the blind and elderly is a good thing
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Final feedback from the funding body boiled down to Screen NSW loving the script but unfortunately
needing a director with more shoots under their belt. The short script is below.
The same short script for Boyd Wonder was shortlisted for the Australian Writer’s Guild Monte Miller
Awards - the AWG's awards for unproduced scripts.
Still Life
Still Life was shortlisted for funding by Film Victoria's Short Film Fund, with producer Peter George.
Predating the feature Cross Life by some years, this short script would later go on to become the major thread
of that feature film multinarrative. In contrast to Strickland's later focus on comic drama, Still Life tackled more morally
complex and difficult subject material.
His director notes from the time read:
“In Still Life I’m interested in the idea of a Christmas where the core values of this festival become lost in
translation. Through the central couple who are neither blameless nor ‘evil’, I intend to explore a scenario
that shows them in moral shades of grey. With this, I’m keen to look at topical notions of the ‘worthy’ poor
or ‘battlers’ versus ‘bludgers’ — blurring the line between these stereotypes.
Still Life fits within the genre of social realism, showing a self-thwarting couple unable to achieve societal
norms of family and a stable home yet dignified through a key component of the family — love. The downbeat
resolution completes a tragic chain of events, which are the natural conclusion to snowballing inequity,
self-serving crime and the unlucky hand dealt by fate.”
Still Life – Synopsis
A hard up man lives in a car with his pregnant girlfriend. Provoked by real fears his child will be taken by
authorities if they seek aid, the man robs an old woman to provide for them. When the old woman dies,
an abject chain of events follow, beginning with a birth on Christmas day.