Fwends + Q&A

Two unsettled twenty-somethings test old bonds and new anxieties in Sophie Somerville’s warm, award-winning ode to friendship and Melbourne’s inner north.

When high-strung Sydney lawyer Em (Emmanuelle Mattana) visits her aimless friend Jessie (Melissa Gan) in Melbourne, the pair spends 24 hours navigating the city (and their neuroses) in this naturalistic “nano-budget” feature from Naarm-based director Sophie Somerville. Winner of the Caligari Film Prize at the 2024 Berlinale, Fwends follows the duo through a verité day and a long, hallucinatory night – through flights of fancy and assorted breakdowns – all backdropped by the busy streets of the CBD, Fitzroy and Brunswick.

Somewhere between the small-stakes sweetness of mumblecore and the playful digressions of Jacques Rivette, Sophie Somerville’s first feature is a charming, odd-couple comedy that balances realism with gentle surreality. Shot largely guerrilla-style with long, improvised takes, the film unfolds like an anthropological study of elder gen-Zers, punctuated by moments of form-defying whimsy. A meandering day in Melbourne that plays like a time capsule in real time, it feels destined to be remembered as a defining snapshot of the city, circa today.