New film focuses on gay fathers
A gay Sydney director, whose latest work is currently showing at the Sydney Film Festival, has announced plans to produce a short film about a male couple struggling with parenthood and relationship breakdown.
Director Tim Slade told Sydney Star Observer casting for Every Other Weekend was currently taking place and filming would begin in Sydney’s inner west in the spring.
Based on the short story Silent Protest by American writer Craig T. McWhorter, the film looks at how the two men’s break-up affects both them and their daughter who has to shuttle between the couple every other weekend.
“The complex and beautifully explored emotional content was the chief reason I wanted to adapt it into a film,” Slade said.
“It’s a very quietly told, moving story – this sort of material can sound melodramatic and turgid, but Craig wrote the story with such feeling and restraint that if you’ve ever felt any sense of loss, the story hits you straight in the heart.”
Slade believes the production will shine a light on an area of the gay world not often explored.
“The film takes a fresh and mature perspective on a gay relationship,” Slade said.
“It’s a relationship in tatters, but it explores the dynamics between these two men in a really intimate and honest way that we don’t see a lot on screen.
“These are real, flesh and blood characters who don’t pander to stereotype.”
This is the first gay-themed production from Slade and his Vast Productions company.
It was chosen, he said, for the quality of its story, not its gay theme.
“I haven’t really done much gay stuff before,” Slade said. “But this isn’t just a story for gay people. It doesn’t make an agenda about their sexuality – it’s pure, emotional and everyone can relate to it.”
Slade is planning to enter Every Other Weekend into various film festivals including the 2008 Sydney Film Festival and Queer Screen’s Mardi Gras Film Festival.
Slade’s current production 4 – a documentary looking at the appreciation of music across the globe – will be screened at Cremorne’s Orpheus Theatre on 2 August.
