It’s time for Franky to go to Hollywood.
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Following humble beginnings in Maitland and the Hunter Valley, the Australian feature film Bathing Franky has been picked up by a Beverley Hills distributor.
Written by Gresford farmer Michael Winchester, Bathing Franky tells the story of a young man Steve (Shaun Goss) who, when dealing with his troubled past, is captivated by Rodney (Henri Szeps) a wildly, irrepressible older man and his aging yet compelling mother Franky (Maria Venuti).
The Hollywood offer came after Winchester, industry mentor John O’Brien and the film’s director Owen Elliott travelled to California for the American Film Market.
“We packed up our Bathing Franky DVDs, found some cheap flights via Fiji to Los Angeles and tried to, as they say in Hollywood, get some skin in the game from a sales agent or distributor,” Winchester said.
Elliott described the LA experience as speed dating for filmmakers.
“You’d have 15 minutes with each distributor or agent and you’d know soon enough if they were interested or not,” he said. “It was brutally honest but exactly what we needed.
“Franky was always a movie built on generosity. It was the generosity of spirit from so many people in the Hunter Valley that got it made. And in LA it was the same, we stayed with friends of friends, borrowed another friend’s car so we could hit the freeways and, frankly, everyone was generous with their focus during our 15 minutes.”
Bathing Franky examines how hope, forgiveness and imagination can be used as a means for dealing with the harsher aspects of life.
It has been screened in more than 30 locations across Australia and has made the official selection for the Australian Film Festival of India, the Maleny Festival of Australian Film and the Queen City Film Festival, Maryland, US.