C9. Best Cinematography (Nominee)
Talkback
From Ethan Good
Wally wins a prize on a talkback radio show he never signed up for. When the traffic light he's waiting at never turns green, it becomes unclear if he's really won anything at all.
Hi! I'm Ethan Good, an emerging filmmaker from suburban Sydney. I'm in my final year of studying Media Arts and Production at the University of Technology Sydney. My short film, Talkback, was shortlisted for the festival. I enjoy making darkly comedic films with flawed, morally ambiguous characters. My previous work includes a mix of documentary and narrative storytelling; I've been obsessed with storytelling in all of its forms for as long as I can remember.
What inspired you and your work?
Talkback was inspired by a simple question I posed myself: how long will someone cling on to something if they're given a reason to, no matter how nonsensical? And what happens when that hope gets exploited? This idea of hope as a flaw rather than a strength spawned from experiences in my own life where I found myself holding onto things a little too tightly.
I am heavily inspired by the works of Paul Thomas Anderson, who similarly writes about deeply flawed protagonists, along with Yorgos Lanthimos and the Coen brothers. Visually, I draw from the grittiness of the Safdie brothers and the meticulous control of Vince Gilligan.