Lou Sanz on engaging with empathy with the pitch black comedy Audrey

The Curb

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In 2024, director Natalie Bailey and writer Lou Sanz unleashed Audrey onto audiences in Australia and America. Here's a film that I called a caustic comedy that rains like refreshing acid rain. Here's the story of a mum, Ronnie (played by Jackie van Beek), who opts to literally take over the life of her daughter Audrey (Josephine Blazier) when she ends up in a coma after an accident.

This immaculately layered comedy film arrived in a time where Australian audiences are calling for more Aussie comedies, yet they're simply not paying attention to their existence, or if they do go and see them, they push off against them saying that they should be more like The Castle. As a writer and critic who predominantly covers Australian films, the notion of funnelling a creative voice into one style of genre storytelling is a frustrating and reductive one, and in turn, means that audiences are denying themselves the chance of engaging with some of the most inventive, exciting, and entertaining feature films that we've had in recent years.

That notion of reframing and recontextualising Audrey soon after its release is part of the scope of the upcoming screening of Audrey at the Melbourne Women in Film Festival, where the film has received the ReFrame Stamp for Gender-Balanced Production. This is an international mark of distinction that recognises film and television projects that have undertaken gender balanced hiring practices inclusive of women, non-binary and trans people across key production roles. Gender balance is something that's often discussed in relation to Screen Australia's Gender Matters initiative, but is rarely executed.

In the following interview, writer Lou Sanz unpacks the reactions to Audrey, followed by a discussion on how the script was built, including the creation of characters, the queer positivity on screen, and finding the empathy within dark comedy. Lou also talks about her work on the seminal early 2000s comedy series Life Support, which saw actors like Abbie Cornish and Brendan Cowell satirise lifestyle programming with some of the finest dark comedy we've been privileged to see on screen.

Audrey is screening with a discussion around the ReFrame Stamp at the Melbourne Women in Film Festival on Friday 21 March 2025 in Naarm-Melbourne. Tickets are available via MWFF.org.au.

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