Melissa Anastasi on the poetry of existence and capturing that life on screen in her films

Filmmaker Melissa Anastasi has crafted a body of work that speaks to the experience of growing up in the Greater Western Sydney region of NSW. Her characters exist on the fringes of society; sometimes, they're so far on the fringe that the centre is barely perceptible. Shorts like By this River and This Feral Life see her characters seeking some kind of future for themselves as they grapple with the loss of parents, people who acted as a ballast for their tumultuous existence. Yet, Melissa's characters aren't helpless beings. They have agency and an understanding of their place in society. Within that understanding, they know how to navigate some kind of path forward that maintains their place in the fringes of their worlds.

Then there's a film like Chlorine, a stunning short film that follow Keira, a young girl in search of a present parent, someone to be her lighthouse through the muddled life she's living. Keira is a youngster who frequents a local aquatic centre, blending in with the array of children in togs and swimming caps, slinking into change rooms to steal money here and pilfer belongings there. She gets by in the way that she knows how to, all the while looking at the older women at the pool as if they could become her surrogate mother.

Across Melissa's work is a sense of characters trying to find their place of belonging, of ownership of who they are and how they hold themselves in the world. In less assured hands, these characters might become villains or thugs, but under Melissa's guidance, they are creatures that deserve empathy, understanding, and compassion. Her work is driven by the notion of inviting the audience into their worlds and seeing how trapped they might be.

These themes culminate in one of the finest short films I've seen in recent memory, a stand out piece of work that I'm still nursing a bruise from how hard it hit me. The short is Soft Gaze, a deeply empathetic film co-written with Melissa's partner Aimee Tracton, featuring a head turning performance from Jess Bell who stuns as Georgie, a cop who becomes infatuated with a lesbian couple she sees on the beach. Over the space of about 25-minutes, we see Georgie's interest in the couple turn to stalking, and in Melissa's observation of Georgie's stalking, there's a raw and honest presentation of understanding who she is a character and recognising the level of loneliness and emptiness that sits within Georgie's life.

Long time listeners or readers will no doubt have heard me talk about these kinds of films before. While I'm drawn to all forms of cinema, it's these kinds of open and honest stories that I find myself drawn to the most. The work of Lucy Coleman fits this mould, while Sophie Serisier's Oi feels like a cinematic sibling to Soft Gaze. Then, of course, there's the work of David Robinson Smith, another filmmaker crafting stories from the western Sydney region.

It's then no surprise that that synergy with stories and style between filmmakers like David and Melissa is so prominent in a work like Soft Gaze, with Melissa working with David's long time collaborator Jaclyn Paterson as cinematographer. There's a level of intimacy and internal understanding that Jaclyn is able to bring with her cinematography, and it's so keenly felt in this film and films like David's The Shirt Off Your Back.

As we step forward further into this decade, we're witnessing this rise of storytellers crafting films from their own lived perspectives, driven by a need to put their world on screen. That trend, the rising swell of Australian cinema, that I've previously mentioned, the list of creatives who are shaping what the new Australian cinema looks like, is made up of filmmakers like Lucy Coleman, Sophie Serisier, Kaite Fitz, Jessica Sofarnos, David Robinson Smith, and Melissa Anastasi.

MELISSA ANASTASI

MELISSA ANASTASI

The following conversation unpacks Melissa's work, while touching on what a future feature film from Melissa will look like. Melissa's work is available to view on her website MelissaAnastasi.com, and I encourage you to dive into the available shorts prior to listening to this interview. I also encourage you to check out her commissioned work too which features music videos with artists like Jane Tyrrell from Elefant Traks and commissioned shorts about mental health.

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This Feral Life - 2014

Chlorine - 2019