Tropfest success for Tassie duo

A SHORT film produced by a pair of Tasmanians has taken out the top prize at this year’s Tropfest.

Tasmanians Gabrielle McLeod and Gillian Crosby produced Two Piece, a portrayal of a young teenager shopping for a bikini with her mother and brother, which took out first place at the national short film festival.

McLeod, 23, who lived in Tasmania until she was 18 and now lives in Melbourne, went to school with Crosby and said it was an incredible experience to win Tropfest together.

“It was absolutely amazing, I was just absolutely shocked,” McLeod said.

“Just before, our lead actress, Freya Van Dyke Goodman, who is 14 years old, she won best actress, so we were so blown away with that we hadn’t even considered the fact that we could win.

“I still don’t think it’s really sunk in yet.”

Two Piece, which was written and directed by McLeod’s close friend, Greta Nash, beat out 15 other finalists.

“[Nash] wrote Two Piece just basically off her own experiences of ... going shopping for bathers when you’re a 13-year-old girl and your body is changing and you feel awkward and you don’t know how to deal with yourself, so you take it out on your mum,” McLeod said.

“It’s just that kind of situation that I think everybody’s been through.

“Even when we were filming in the swimwear store, the shop assistant said ‘I’ve heard this conversation every day for my life that I have worked here’.”

McLeod said it was the biggest award of her short career, so far.

She hopes to continue to work with Nash and Crosby, and would like to one day return to work on local productions in her home state.