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Filmmaker bets the house on his first feature

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Film
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After directing TV episodes and shorts, Kane Guglielmi is so keen to make his first feature he is selling his house to finance the production.

Due to shoot in February, Cooped Up is a black comedy about a bitter professional wrestler named Jake Ridge who comes into contact with a potentially fatal virus while wrestling in Sydney.

He’s forced to spend 21 days in isolation in his childhood home. His only link to the outside world is Dr. Emily Mundy, an expert in emerging viruses who abhors violence and can't comprehend how a man could make a living pretending to fight.

Charles Cottier (Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Home and Away, Please Like Me) is attached to play Jake. The casting of Emily and other roles is yet to be finalised.

The screenplay is by UK-based Australian John Ratchford. Guglielmi, who has directed episodes of Home and Away, will direct and produce through his company Volare Pictures. The cinematographer is Andre Deubel.

Explaining his motivation, he tells IF, “I am making the jump from directing TV to features, and in order to make my movie, I'm selling my home in Leura to pay for it. I am married with a baby on the way, and we live in what I would consider a dream house. So it's not an easy decision for us. But I've been pushing hard for over a decade now and this has been a life-long dream. We're taking a big but calculated risk.

“I've had some interesting projects over the last six years including The Phantom comic franchise, a Fred Schepisi film and a remake of the 1984 Michael Caine/Anthony Quinn/James Mason thriller The Marseille Contract aka The Destructors. After these bigger projects (and their frustrations) I decided to turn to my own backyard and do something small that was my own."

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5 Comments

  2. How far does one go to chase their dream is a tough one. My feeling is that you go all the way if that dream is at the top of your hierarchy of values and priorities in life. All in. No matter what.

    However, the flip side is that mathematically the odds are against the film maker to break even or profit unless he / she has great producing skills and marketing skills (or someone on board with them) as film making as a dream has nothing to do with commercial reality. So this person is taking an enormous risk that could be well ameliorated by getting private investors that might share the dream to share some / much/ all of that risk. People who can afford to lose it and prepared to lose it as they would be getting something from their investments that would not be normally available to them through other high risk ventures : A credit, a role or cameo, a job for a family member, or the philanthropic buzz of helping someone else achieve a dream or seeing a shared subject or goal brought to life.

    So if his wife is 100% behind him and shares his vision and dream, it’s not as big a potential disaster as if she is not; although with a baby on the way it would be a ‘smarter bet’ to get someone to privately finance it and I don’t know what budget we’re talking about—whether it’s a tiny budget and more recoverable, or not. But smaller budgets, smaller profile actors, etc, often have much more difficult times in the marketplace recouping because they are undercast or undermarketed or a million other factors.

    That having been said.. it is HIS dream, and I suspect and sincerely hope in this case that even if he loses his shirt, is unable to recover his investment, nobody ever sees the film and he has to settle for a much lesser lifestyle than the house in Leura with the wife and picket fence and new baby… that he would be satisfied that he finally rolled the dice and experienced whatever experience it is he is seeking in life by going this route. And that deserves great spiritual support and blessings because his willingness to take a great risk is in itself, a wondrous move in a world where so many are so reluctant to take any risk, and sit around planning to do something they will never do, or sitting around watching and waiting for other people to fail so they can say “I told you so”. So Godspeed and good luck to this guy and his project. If he keeps that attitude throughout the production and beyond he will succeed somewhere, somehow, someplace—so this isn’t a be-all/end-all it’s simply a step.

    However, if it’s not too late, I also think he has the opportunity to burn his house, collect the insurance, get huge mercy handouts from the Blue Mountains community, use some of that to finance a small film on how he planned to burn his home to finance a film, get the insurance company he’s with to finance his feature as a caveat training on ‘how not to defraud a major insurance company’, crowd fund a big pool to reward the firefighters, keep that money and use it for marketing his feature, and apply for compensation from the Federal Government under the guise that the arson was a ‘hate crime’ because we know most people don’t like people who works in the arts. Just tryin’ to help here…

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  4. Reminds me of Coppola’s quest of selling his house/mansion to fund “Apocalypse Now”. I remember in Hearts of Darkness that his wife was backing Francis 100% and wouldn’t mind downgrading the lifestyle. The difference being, Coppola had just come out with The Godfather Part I & II and The Conversation… I hope Guglielmi smashes it!

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  5. Its a big step but with a supportive partner, its a little less stressful. I’m a great believer in risking all for what you believe. The joy of a risky venture succeeding is immeasurable and yet there are those deep dark gullies to be waded through if it doesn’t.
    I can’t help but think that a clever and inspiring Pozible or Kickstarter campaign might not be a bad idea, (sorry if you’ve already gone down this path) to kickstart a funding campaign. I suppose you’ve made all the appropriate appeals and applications to the funding bodies.

    I am a producer but sadly I am not the one you need. I have the chutzpah, energy and commitment but not the contacts or serious big budget experience you need.

    But, I would be happy to join a think tank to assist you or work on the production.
    Go for it Kane.
    May the money gods be with you
    Suzy Gordon

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