Will Oscar’s Glow Shine on Spencer Susser’s I Love Sarah Jane?
Debi Moore
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Last year right before Halloween we shared with our readers a pretty cool Aussie short film entitled “I Love Sarah Jane”. What does that have to do with the Oscars? In a round-about way Natalie Portman’s win for Black Swan and Jacki Weaver’s nomination for Animal Kingdom could help the filmmaking collective known as Blue-Tongue Films finance a feature-length version of Spencer Susser’s zombie-themed short.
As IndieWire’s The Playlist blog explains it, among the gestating films from the [Blue-Tongue] team is one from [director] Spencer Susser — the man behind the upcoming Hesher starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, [Best Actress Oscar winner] Natalie Portman, and Rainn Wilson — and it will see him adapt his acclaimed post-apocalytic zombie short “I Love Sarah Jane” into a full-length feature film. No word on if the project will be Susser’s next, but with zombies all the rage at the moment, there’s probably never been a better time for him to tackle it.
The short film [written by Susser and David Michôd] was released back in 2007 starring a pre-fame Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland, The Kids are All Right) along with Brad Ashby, Vladmimir Matovic, Beau South, and Peter Yacoub. It’s a simple story of young love in a zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic world. Despite the low budget and already dated SFX, the mood and tone created by Susser and the performances by leads Ashby and Wasikowska result in a cute, compelling piece of work—which bodes very well for Hesher, a film that also juggles drama and chaos.
For a bit of background on Michôd, he wrote and directed Animal Kingdom, which won the world cinema jury prize at Sundance and has received rapturous reviews along with scoring a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for terrifying matriarch Jacki Weaver. He and Susser (along with Joel Edgerton, Kieran Darcy-Smith, Nash Edgerton, and Luke Doolan) are members of the Aussie Blue-Tongue Films group of up-and-coming creators of short films, music videos, and features.
As for “I Love Sarah Jane”, in the span of 15 minutes there’s the stuff of tentative young love, a new spin on a zombie world, and, in what’s a trademark for these guys, a heck of an ending. Watch and enjoy!
For more visit Blue-Tongue Films on Facebook.
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