A shout out for our excellent friend Bill Mousoulis!

 Last Saturday evening at the Eastend Cinema in Adelaide 

Bill had a successful screening of his most recent film 

                    My Darling in Stirling

Bill told me it was shown in a theatre holding about 100 people.

"It was just short of a sell out, only 4 tickets left unbought. But, hey, around
100 people were there so a great success! I personally was pleased with how the
film looked and sounded.

At the Adelaide FF in October it looked and sounded horrible. So, on this front,
a great success for me personally, and I think it also contributed to the audience
being fully attentive to the film and appreciating it.

                 Amelie Dunda in the central role, as a 19-year-old university student.

It's a real crowd-pleaser this film, there was huge applause in the end.
The film does have a light, joyful feel to it, which was my plan, but the
audience response has far exceeded my expectations.

                Bill Mousoulis with young actors Amelie Dunda and Joshua Blenkiron, 

                                              flanked by their respective parents.

Making films as an independent filmmaker, i.e. as a truly independent filmmaker,
without any funding attached to the project, is quite difficult these days.


Not necessarily in the actual making of it (apart from letting go of at least around 

$10,000of your own money), because there are always keen actors and crew 

members ready to be involved in any project, even without being paid for it. Of 

course, there are still difficulties and limitations in making any such film. For a 

start, it helps if you are into realist cinema, like myself. If you're into set pieces 

of action, or you need costumes or props that are quite particular, or a location 

that is grand and inaccessible, then you're up against it. For myself, I have made 

11 features now, so am quite used to getting around whatever obstacles that are 

presented in front of me. Somehow, I end up completing each feature I attempt.


The hard part these days with any indie feature is to get it screened and noticed. 

Through my network of film critics, I'm always assured of some reviews appearing, 

as they have for this new film of mine (My Darling in Stirling, 79 mins). But when it 

comes to any screenings of a no-budget indie film, it is quite hard to get into 

festivals, or onto distribution platforms. Basically, there are always vested interests 

involved when it comes to the market-place. And festivals are clearly part of the 

ecosystem of this market-place. Any 5 million dollar film will always get any festival 

slot ahead of any $10,000 film. The distributors always pressure the festivals to take 

their films.


With My Darling in Stirling, I was lucky I think with the Adelaide Film Festival in that 

the film is made in Adelaide, and the festival created a special "SA indies" section, 

\for some low-budget films. So, in October of last year, I had a successful world 

premiere of the film there. The Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) on the 

other hand rejected my film last year. It clearly does not have any "Indies" section, 

and it hasn't really supported low-budget cinema since around the mid-'00s.

Through the early months of 2024, I have received more rejections from festivals 

(mainly overseas ones, though there is one acceptance at least, a small festival in 

Cyprus for June). Because the film has already premiered in Adelaide, I decided to 

set up my own 2nd public screening of the film in Adelaide, in a cinema. Assisted by 

a young film collective called Moviejuice, I hired a Palace Nova cinema for Saturday, 

March 23. It's great that these days even the commercial cinemas hire out their 

venues, allowing for indie filmmakers to put screenings on themselves. Of course, 

it's a risk. Even for a 57-seat cinema for example, you need 30-35 people to attend, 

just to break even. In the end, the 57-seat cinema we had booked proved too small, 

so we upgraded it to a 104-seat cinema and managed to pack the place out. This 

film of mine seems to actually be a crowd-pleaser (I guess it is a musical, even if it's 

an alternative, unusual musical), so one needs that on one's side too.

I look forward to presenting the film in Melbourne in the coming months. MIFF have 

agreed to reconsider it, but if they don't take it, I know I can hire out a cinema there, 

and put it on myself. An independent filmmaker always needs to be proactive 

and resourceful.

Bill Mousoulis, March 2024.

 

The film's website is at https://mydarlinginstirling.com/