Sophie Somerville on making Fwends on a ‘nanobudget’
During the London Film Festival, I met up with Australian writer, director and editor Sophie Somerville at a cafe to discuss her debut feature Fwends.
This comedy-drama stars Emmanuelle Mattana and Melissa Gan as old friends Em and Jessie, who meet up for the weekend in Melbourne. A realistic depiction of friendship, their conversation flits between light-hearted and fluffy and serious and confrontational as the reunion weekend progresses and doesn’t quite go to plan.
Somerville worked with Mattana and Gan to devise the story and create the characters, and then shot it on the streets of Melbourne with her filmmaker friends for 10 days in 2023 before premiering it in Berlin earlier this year.
In this conversation, we discuss improvising each scene, shooting on a “nanobudget” and the fear of releasing your work into the world.
How did the project come about and how did those two actresses get involved?
Fwends is a really, really micro nanobudget film and it was made by me and my friends who are filmmakers like me. We made it outside the system so we sort of pulled together all the resources that we had, so the people that we knew, the places we could shoot for free and created a story, sort of assembling all those things, like sort of putting all the puzzle pieces together and making a story out of that. The story came organically out of the process of making the film. It was shot totally improvised and we shot it in order, so chronologically.
I sort of created these characters for these two actors and then we sort of devised the story together so they could showcase all their talents and we could make it a mutually beneficial experience for all of us.
As it’s improvised, did you have an idea, like, ‘In this scene, we’ll talk about this’ and then improvise from there?
Yeah, I had sort of a treatment document that sort of had a rough idea of like, ‘This is the situation that Em’s in in her life, this is where Jessie’s at’ and each scene sort of had rough ideas of like, ‘Maybe this is where they talk about this’, but we were very loose and very open throughout the process and just trusting our instincts.
So I guess with no budgets, you don’t get permits or anything? You just go for it?
Yeah. I mean with Melbourne, there’s a very useful filming permit situation where if you have a really tiny crew of less than six people, you don’t have to get permission from the council, so that was what we worked with.
One of my favourite scenes is the one with the microphone. I loved how it started off so silly and the tone of it shifts and it’s like this confrontation about the friendship. That’s the scene of the film for me, I really love it. With it being improvised, how did you achieve the shift?
That scene just involved a lot of trust. At that point, Em and Mel have a very rich understanding of their characters. With that, we sort of just filmed a bunch of different things, just sort of trying. There was one version where they didn’t argue and it was more just silly and then I was like, ‘Let’s just shift the vibe, let’s see what’s underneath here.’ That sort of moment where Jessie pulls that moment on Em, I think it works so well because it was something happening in the moment. Like it wasn’t scripted and it was sort of Mel just following an instinct that just felt totally right. It’s one of my favourite scenes in the film too.
The French narration moment really made me laugh. Where did the inspiration for that come from?
That wasn’t initially (in it), that was added in quite late in the edit. I had music there initially and I just thought there needs to be something here to spice it up. I tend to do that in all my (films), because I edit my films. I think I get so bored with them towards the end where I feel the need to add something surprising to kind of wake people up sort of late in the film and play with the expectations of the language the film’s speaking in.
Did you do many takes of each scene?
It really varied. Some things took a lot of goes to get right, especially ones in the city. There’ll be like people looking at the camera and stuff like that, so you have to do another take. Other moments, it was just like, ‘Yep, that’s it, that’s the one.’ So it was kind of more of a documentary sort of mindset, where it’s about capturing individual moments as opposed to like traditional narrative filmmaking, where you’re like trying to perfect a performance.
When you look back at the finished film, what scene or sequence are you most proud of?
The microphone scene. I know we’ve already spoken about it, but performance-wise, it’s so strong. I was so addicted to watching it. Sometimes you get really really sick of the film, but with that scene, I was just so amazed by how good Em and Mel are. And it was just so cool to be able to make that with them. And then I’m also super proud of the nightclub sequence. Because it was just so fun to shoot that. It was really super guerrilla style, we went into a nightclub and we had two Super 8 cameras and a camcorder, and we were just partying, just capturing so much footage. It was really fun.
What would you say was the biggest challenge during filming?
I would say during filming is always fun because you’re surrounded by awesome people who motivate you and make you feel good about yourself. I’ve been very lucky to work with really nice people for my films. I feel like the challenging part always comes afterwards, where you’re kind of reckoning with the fear of not having made something good, and you know, having it to put out into the world. That is a really terrifying moment. And not knowing how it’ll be received.
It must be nice to have received positive feedback now! Are you working on anything else?
I’ve got a new feature film that we’re going to make with proper funding so I’m excited. It’s a bit of a sensitive (time) so I can’t say too much about it, but hopefully next year we’ll get to make it.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
Fwends played at the 2025 London Film Festival. It is currently without a release date.