While enjoying the solitude of nature, Margie, an inquisitive young woman, has an encounter with something disturbingly familiar. Through her subsequent pursuit she finds herself venturing off the beaten track to the very edge of reality.
Shot in the luscious green bushland of West Gippsland, Victoria and written in 2020/2021 as a “Lockdown Script” – new release short FEIRG was conceived “as a film that negotiated grief through the horror medium” to quote director Edward Yates.
FEIRG is a haunting and effective 10-minute trek into the paranormal, that hones its mysterious narrative from horror classics that had audiences walking in circles, both literally a figurately, such as in The Blair Witch Project.
It’s encouraging to see Gippsland being utilised to its full cinematic potential, with the wilderness that surrounds its many small towns playing a key role in providing the type of foreboding atmosphere both filmmakers and viewers can thrive on.
Yates, who grew up in Gippsland, returned to the region in 2019 and was keen to make a film in the area where he lived as a child. It comes in stark contrast to his first short, a fun zombie-comedy set in suburban Melbourne, Knit of Dead, made with partner and co-director Alana Auden.
Q&A WITH DIRECTORS
Alana Auden and Edward Yates were kind enough to answer a few questions about their short film Feirg the filmmaking process and shooting on location in West Gippsland.
Horror movies often explore the idea of a time loop or a character encountering one’s self under ominous circumstances. Are there any particular movies that you drew inspiration from?
Ed: I’ve always enjoyed books with time travel elements as well as films. Not necessarily horror films with a time travel element but films like the Terminator and Back to the Future as well as Looper and Predestination. I love time travel paradoxes like the grandfather paradox and in part we’re utilising one as an allegory for the cycle of grief and examining if it is something that can be escaped or does it end up recurring as an endless nightmare.
Alana: Just like Ed I’ve always enjoyed exploring the time travel paradox, although not specifically within the horror genre. We really felt that the time travel element lent itself quite naturally to the cycles of grief that are explored in Feirg. Alongside the films Ed mentioned we’re also both long term fans of David Lynch who loves to explore non-linear narratives which I’m sure has had an influence on us along the way.
Is it difficult trying to get a short film screened once it’s complete? Monster Fest has always been very receptive to local filmmakers. What was their initial response to Feirg?
Ed: It does take a bit of perseverance as prior to Monsterfest we entered Feirg in a number of much larger international genre festivals that run in the front half of the year without success. Getting a festival run is also another cost for filmmakers after making the film with festival entry fees adding up. We always had an entry planned for Monsterfest and thankfully the programmers there liked it and decided to include it in the 2024 program. We’re delighted to get a Melbourne premiere for the film so our cast and crew and supporters can see it on the big screen.
Alana: Monster Fest are great supporters of locally made film and have been supporting us since our first short film Knit of the Dead screened at Monster Fest back in 2021. Monster Fest 2024 has been a something of a boon for us as we have two films screening this year. Having said that, submitting a film to a festival is always a daunting task. There are many external factors at play that determine whether a film might be selected in a festival program. Most of those factors are outside the filmmakers control. Does the film complement the other films on the program? Is the run time compatible for programming in a session? Although we plan to submit our films to festivals when we make them, our focus is always on the story and making the film we want to make first and foremost. You have both utilised Gippsland’s dense bushland in creating a very haunting atmosphere in Feirg. Would you say there’s potential in the region for horror features?
Alana: We are incredibly lucky to call West Gippsland home and we really wanted to showcase some of Gippsland’s stunning bushland in Feirg. Gippsland scenery has such a unique look and feel that is unlike anywhere else in Victoria or Australia. It’s beautiful and varied and vast and spooky. There is definitely an untapped potential for setting up a Gippsland-based horror franchise that would be completely distinctive in its look.
Many thanks to Alana and Edward for their time. They have a new short film – BUT – screening at this year’s Monster Fest as part of Trashmania Shorts!
Emmanuelle Mattana gives an almost silent but visceral performance as our protagonist, Margie. Laced with metaphor, her otherworldly plight relates to the seemingly perpetual cycle that often comes with grief or a stagnant existence, which certainly speaks to the life many endured with the prolonged lockdowns at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Round and round she goes, where she stops, nobody knows. FEIRG taps into our subconscious fear of the unknown while making a meaningful statement about ourselves and the world we now live in.
FEIRG will be screening at Monster Fest before the survival horror feature AZRAEL on Friday, October 11th at Cinema Nova in Melbourne.
FEIRG
(2024, Directors: Alana Auden & Edward Yates)
★★★★
behind-the-scenes while shooting in West Gippsland
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