Animals Gala Screening 18+
After a decade of partying, Laura and Tyler’s friendship is strained when Laura falls in love. But what is really stopping her from fulfilling her dreams?
Laura and Tyler have been flatmates and best friends for 10 years, marauding around the streets of Dublin, rejecting the expectations that bombard modern women and acting purely on desire. For Tyler, this is the best version of life, even with the inevitable hangovers, but when Laura's (younger) sister Jean gets pregnant… on purpose… Laura panics. Should she still be partying into her mid-thirties? And what has her supposed talent as an aspiring writer got her, apart from notebooks full of scribbles?
In an inky-dark bar she meets rising-star pianist Jim, who falls for Laura’s wit and passionate attitude to life, and the two soon become engaged. Inspired – or maybe intimidated – by teetotaler Jim’s commitment to his work, Laura knuckles down to finish the novel she’s been writing for a decade.
Tyler, however, is convinced that marriage is the wrong thing for Laura and that her literary success depends on a life of excess, adventure and – crucially – variety… starting with the devilishly handsome Marty. As Laura tries to balance these precarious pieces of her life, she only makes things worse. Can she really have it all? Or is her life of debauchery with Tyler ruining her attempts to create something meaningful? As Laura struggles to come to grips with what it is that she really wants, she begins to realise that living a life for herself might mean leaving someone else behind.
Schedule Friday 5th:
6:30pm: Australian Premiere Screening
9pm - 11pm: Gala After Party at West Oak
Director Sophie Hyde | Producer Sarah Brocklehurst, Rebecca Summerton, Cormac Fox, Sophie Hyde | Screenwriter Emma Jane Unsworth | Cast Holliday Grainger, Alia Shawkat, Fra Fee, Dermot Murphy, Amy Molloy, Kwaku Fortune, Olwen Fouéré, Pat Shortt
Tickets

Sophie's debut-fiction film 52 Tuesdays (director/producer/co-writer) was set and shot every Tuesday for one year and won the directing award in World Cinema Dramatic at Sundance and the Crystal Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. Her first episodic series F*!#ing Adelaide, which she created, produced and directed screened at Berlin Film Festival and Series Mania in 2018 and screened on Australia's ABC1 and iview to glowing reviews. She produced and co-directed the acclaimed feature documentary Life in Movement, winner of the Australian Documentary Prize in 2011 and the Cinedans Jury and Audience prizes. She has been commissioned to make made screen based work for the National Portrait Gallery, Carriageworks and the Art Gallery of South Australia. She also works as a Producer and believes strongly in nurturing new voices. She was recently mentor and executive producer on A Field Guide to Being A 12-year-old-girl, the directorial debut of Tilda Cobham-Hervey which won the short film Crystal Bear at Berlin Film Festival this year. She produced Matt Bate’s feature documentaries Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure and Sam Klemke’s Time Machine, which both premiered at Sundance. She is currently producing a feature documentary by Maya Newell (Gayby Baby) and in will go into production as creator/director of The Hunt, a 4 x 1 hour TV series in 2019. She is a co-founder of film collaborative, Closer Productions.