At WIFT VIC we love celebrating our members at every stage of their creative career journey. I had the pleasure to zoom-in Natalia Bornay, an emerging writer and producer, to hear all about her upcoming short film “Lady Priest”. Joining the call was Natalia’s partner-in-crime (a.k.a co-producer) and the inspiration behind the story, Emily Davis.
“Lady Priest” is a short film about a chaotic marriage celebrant caught between two worlds who attends a Sunday family lunch where she will make a life-changing decision. It’s a comedy about how to survive (or not!) Lebanese-Australian family dynamics.
The story of Lady Priest was inspired by some events in Emily’s life and her experience as a second generation Lebanese Australian woman. She was hard pressed to find similar stories of culturally diverse families in Australian media growing up. “We don’t often see stories on Australian TV of just about 3 generations of women traversing modern life.”
Natalia fell in love with Emily’s stories. The idea of the film began over some drinks and was propelled by a lets-just-make-it attitude.
From the outset Natalia was committed to bringing on board as many female practitioners as possible. “It has always been my dream to have an only… female-identifying or non-binary production,” Natalia said. They recruited an incredible ensemble of key creatives and many of these names will be familiar to the WIFT VIC community.
The dream team included: Eva Justine Torkkola joined as Director after the success of her short film and proof of concept “Something Has Died In The Forest”. Capturing the vision was Vanessa Cox as Director of Photography. Bringing all the style and structure to the set was Fatima El-Hassan Production who took on the dual role of Designer and Costume Designer. Editor Cindy Clarkson has the most years of experience of the team having edited 14 feature films.
Natalia encouraged junior crew members to take on more senior roles. Annie Siegmann is studying to be an audio engineer but when the search for a composer for “Lady Priest” started they took on the challenge and with guidance from Emily, they produced a stunning score.
We often hear murmurs within the industry that it’s too hard to form a crew of predominantly female-identifying creators but Natalia and her team showed that it can be done.
In light of International Women’s Day we can’t help but emphasise the shining example Natalia and her team present. They have shown that when we are committed to creating inclusive and supportive spaces at every stage of production incredible things happen and it lifts everyone higher!
To keep up to date with “Lady Priest” follow them on Instagram. Click here.