FISH

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Synopsis
A boy who makes treasure out of trash meets a girl who thinks she is. Together they explore each other’s wastelands eventually gleaning something beautiful and human from the other…

Director's Statement
Fish is the story of two urban scavengers: an inward boy who searches the decaying docklands for junk to make in to strange fishing lures, and a cheeky but aimless street urchin (the mysterious young woman he meets). Both are seeking refuge from a hostile world.

Through each other, each gleans something beautiful and human hiding in the other. The young woman who can see only her own ugliness, has her reality split along a disturbing seam to her past by the boy’s innocent appreciation of her. In turn, her playful and rebellious bating draws out the boy’s latent desire to make contact.

Fish is both subtle and bold in its efforts to explore the nature of seemingly fated meetings between strangers and their profound results. Sometimes the people who know us least are revealed to have the power to hold a mirror up to our conceits and reveal the truth that lies within.

Fish strikes a balance between symbolic imagery and human behavioural truths. I created a language for the film that served to explore these hidden physical and emotional layers, where visual metaphors express the internal pain of a character, and can manifest in unexpected and striking ways. For instance, the emergence of the woman’s self-loathing in the guise of worms from her self inflicted scars or the mutant fish they catch and the discovery of the treasure concealed within its mouth.

Fish takes place in an idiosyncratic reality, a world that is familiar yet alien, where two suns burn in the sky, one brighter than the other, and creatures lurk under many different surfaces and abandoned human artefacts attract transforming fish.

The boy, the woman and the fish are a product of this skewed and polluted world, three scavengers all versions of one character: the outsider.

Awards/Festivals

Fish Chosen for Official Selection in:
Berlin International Film Festival 2006
Panorama Section

Melbourne International Film Festival 2005
WINNER: Melbourne Airport Award for Emerging Australian Filmmaker ($5,000)

Flickerfest, Sydney Australia 2005
(Purchased by SBS Television Australia, SOS short film program)

Technical Information
Title: FISH
Duration: 13 minutes
Format: 35mm Color
Screen Ratio: 1:1:85
Preview Copy: 4:3 Letter box
Sound: DOLBY SR
Country Of Origin: Australia
Language: English
Year Of Production: 2005
Investors: Private

Key Cast & Crew
WRITTEN & DIRECTED Eron Sheean
STARRING Kane McNay (Mall Boy)
and Melia Naughton
PRODUCER Jason Byrne
CINEMATOGRAPEHR Marin Johnson
EDITOR Geoff Hithchens
MUSIC Anthony Pateras
SOUND DESIGN Emma Bortignon
SPFX MAKE-UP Nik Dorning/Eron Sheean
PRODUCTION DESIGN Peter Saveri
COSTUMES Kim Kneip

Press Quotes

From Melbourne International Film Festival Program:
A boy who makes treasure out of trash meets a girl who thinks that's what she is. Together they explore each other's wasteland. Staring Kane McNay (Mallboy) and Melia Naughton, Sheean's Fish beautifully depicts young lives on the fringe.

From the AGE Newspaper Review by Philippa Hawker
August 6, 2005:
Sheean's Fish, made with his own money and a contribution from his producer, was shot in a deserted part of Melbourne's Docklands. He set himself the task, he says, of making a film with two characters, a work "that had to live and die by the quality of its performances". It's a work that combines symbolism and inventive special effects with a story of emotional contact.