SMASHING
ZOIC FILMS PRESENTS — A NEW FILM
a wonderfully loopy and poetic love story
A SHY GIRL SMASHES OUT OF LONELINESS
Unexpected joy. Delightful anticipation.
Written, produced & directed by Juliet Darling
Almudena Amor · Alex Austin · Waris Ahluwalia · Stella Ye · Tony Llewellyn-Jones
“I read Smashing this morning and I found it utterly charming and wonderfully loopy and poetic, and it's gorgeous uncynical belief in love and romance and delight did something lovely to my heart.”
BEN WHISHAW, ACTOR
“It's funny, odd and clever. The physical world Juliet creates is so specific and detailed; and the two young lonely people moving through it, with such longings, are very touching.”
LAURA JONES — SCREENWRITER, AN ANGEL AT MY TABLE
“Smashing is told with a light touch. Embedded with a sense of wonder, it operates on a deeper level, as we come to understand the struggles of a wonderfully unpredictable young woman: timid and passionate, delicate and strong, a spirit which soars above the humdrum – one who represents us all at our most vulnerable.”
NICK WATERLOW OAM
“Darling is a natural story-teller with an eye for the tragi-comic, compassionate and quirky that make the experience of reading her work unique.”
REBECCA SWIFT — DIRECTOR, TLC
Almudena Amor · Stephan Polman NSC
Alex Austin · Stephan Polman NSC
THE FILM
Two lonely people move through a very specific, very physical world: a yellow car, a wrought-iron gate, roses held through the bars. Neither of them expects the other. Smashing is a love story about the small violence it takes to leave your own company.
Almudena Amor · Kirsty Griffen
STARRING
ALMUDENA AMOR
ALEX AUSTIN
WARIS AHLUWALIA
STELLA YE
TONY LLEWELLYN-JONES
CREW
Written, produced and directed by Juliet Darling
Executive producers Kerr Neilson, Andrew Cameron
Associate producer Jane Corden
Producer Steven McKinnon
Casting Karie Koppel
Director of photography Stephan Polman NSC
Editor Ben Blick-Hodge
Colourist Olivier Fontenay
Sound designer Robert Mackenzie
Art director Elle Frederiksen
Stills Kirsty Griffen
POSTERS
Poster design Miles Sale
Almudena Amor and Alex Austin
Waris Ahluwalia
Almudena Amor
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF LOOKING AT PEOPLE
FILMS & VIDEO WORK
A PAIR OF ONE
DOCUMENTARY
A film about Greta and Freda Chaplin — identical twins from York who moved, dressed and spoke in unison for most of their lives.
“A film that sparkles with the crazy quirkiness of the far edges of humanity, yet resonates with the essence of every human.”
Director, producer, screenwriter Juliet Darling
Narrated by Judy Davis
Photography Sally Bongers, Dennis Crossan, Willem Helvie
St Kilda Film Festival
“From Juliet Darling’s film comes something more than freakish tragedy. They physically represent our deepest fears and wishes about identity.”
THE GUARDIAN, UK
“An extraordinary film about Greta and Freda Chaplin, identical twins who act in unison and refuse to be parted.”
SUNDAY TIMES, UK
“A strange mix of the bizarre and the poignant in this extraordinary film.”
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, UK
“A moving film. Truth really is stranger than fiction.”
THE GUARDIAN, UK
“Being Australian you'll probably drop your knitting several times as this hilarious but disconcerting documentary unfolds.”
EXPRESS, PERTH
DEAD LETTERS
DOCUMENTARY · ABC TELEVISION
Inside the Dead Letter Office, where three postal workers open eight thousand undeliverable letters a week looking for a return address. Love letters, hate mail, a dead fish.
Director & screenwriter Juliet Darling
Associate producer Jane Campion
Photography Paul Elliott
Editor Jane Moran
Music David Hewitt
Nominated, Best Documentary — Banff Film Festival
“A canny combination of the sad, pathetic, funny and bizarre.”
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
ONE NIGHT IN ATLANTA
2017 · VIDEO WORK
Shot in slow motion, where almost all of the action is internal. Two men in a room, and the relentless movement of time.
Director, producer, screenwriter Juliet Darling
Photography Tom Hurwitz
With Ben Whishaw, Kenneth Tigar
Best Experimental Film — Oxford International Film Festival, 2017
Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts.
WAIT
2017 · THREE-CHANNEL VIDEO
A trilogy about waiting: a few waiting in front of a painting — the Mona Lisa, though we never see it — surfers waiting on the ocean, strangers waiting to meet.
Mona Lisa · Bondi · Town Hall
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne
Art Basel Hong Kong, film sector
“Its triumph is that it never becomes merely ‘documentary’, its intimacy is never intrusive.”
DAVID MALOUF
PRESS
A LETTER-PERFECT DOCUMENTARY
Sydney Morning Herald · 4 October 1997
HILARIOUSLY FUNNY, ACHINGLY SAD
Sun-Herald
A STRANGE, SAD, THOROUGHLY COMPELLING PEEK AT SOCIETY’S UNDERSIDE
The Australian
ABOUT
Juliet Darling · Ronaldus Shamask
JULIET DARLING
Juliet Darling is an artist, writer and filmmaker based in Sydney. She works across documentary, video installation and fiction, and her films have shown at Sydney Film Festival, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, the Centre for Contemporary Photography and Art Basel Hong Kong.
Her memoir A Double Spring was published by Allen and Unwin in 2015. Her work returns, again and again, to interpersonal communion — the self in relationship with others.
Smashing — short fiction
2017
One Night In Atlanta — video work
2015
WAIT — three-channel video
2015
A Double Spring — memoir, Allen & Unwin
1997
Dead Letters — documentary, ABC, Channel 4, ZDF
1987
A Pair of One — documentary, SBS, Channel 4, ZDF
“Juliet Darling has written a book about the worst nightmare one could imagine, but her focus is throughout on the quality and depth of the love she and Nick shared and celebrated in their ten years together. She is a highly visual, poetic writer, and her reflections are restrained, often unexpected, and memorable. There is lots of beauty here.”
STEPHANIE DORWICK, ON A DOUBLE SPRING
“Juliet Darling's novel Mercy Annie fascinated me from the beginning. I thought it original and authentic. I was delighted by its fresh voice; honest, yearning, confessional, female.”
JANE CAMPION, WRITER AND FILM DIRECTOR — THE PIANO, THE POWER OF THE DOG
GET IN TOUCH
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