The making of Looking for Alibrandi: 'If we didn't get it right, we'd be crucified'
Cursed women, shame, class, migrant identity, death – these are the themes that coalesce in the singular, coming-ofage film Looking for Alibrandi. Twenty years after release it has lost none of its emotional sting.
Adapted from Melina Marchetta’s beloved, best-selling 1992 novel, the film follows the stubborn and smartmouthed Josie Alibrandi (Pia Miranda) in her final year of high school. She navigates a jagged relationship with her matriarchal Italian family, including mother (Greta Scacchi) and grandmother (Elena Cotta), confronts xenophobia and class anxiety at her private Catholic school, develops a relationship with her out-of-the-picture father (Anthony LaPaglia), dates, studies and wrestles with her own in-flux identity.
Growing up with Italian grandparents and attending a vicious Catholic Sydney high school, I clung to the book (and later film) because it held a mirror to my upbringing, previously unseen in pop culture. Beyond those specific similarities, it also understood that the experience of teenage girlhood is plagued by cruelty, cluelessness and soul-crushing indignities.
The film’s thoughtful and yet unvarnished depiction of teen suicide remains especially resonant. The death of Josie’s friend and crush, John Barton (Matthew Newton) – burdened by the expectations of his powerful, political family – is a moment glued to the subconscious of many Australians of a particular age. It’s difficult to watch the film’s sombre and restrained funeral scene without sobbing.
Written, directed and produced by three women on their first feature film, Looking for Alibrandi was a critical and commercial hit, winning best film at the Australian Film Institute awards in 2000.
For the film’s 20th anniversary this month, I spoke to Marchetta, director Kate Woods, producer Robyn Kershaw and Miranda about how the film was made, its enduring legacy and that heart-wrenching funeral scene.
‘This was the most-stolen book out of any school library’
Kershaw: [Film producer] Tristram Miall said to me: “Would you like to read this book? I can’t seem to get the development happening on it.” I read it in one night and came in the next day, and said: “I love this. I cried. It was fantastic … [but] I’d only be interested if Melina was interested.” So he spoke to Melina, we all met, and then Melina and I started working on drafting the screenplay.
Marchetta: I wasn’t interested in rushing into anything, because I felt that no one had really written about the cultural experience of Italians in a positive way, and I was very nervous about what they would do with it. But Tristram had just done Strictly Ballroom, which I did love. We had a few offshore offers, but a couple of months later I decided nup, I’ll go with Tristram ...
I think they were just finding it hard to find the right person to write the script. Anyone who tried, you know, there was a bit of cultural insensitivity to the work. So when he brought Robyn Kershaw [on] as the producer, that for me started really shaping everything.
Kershaw: I met with pretty much every single female director at the time. I think I knew that it needed to be someone who was coming of age, like I was. It was a coming-of-age experience for me as a film-maker, and for the director and for Melina as a screenwriter.
Woods: We worked together for three years before it came out. I was very mindful that this was the moststolen book out of any school library. That was a dubious honour. This was a really well-known book and a muchloved character. If we didn’t get it right, we’d be crucified.
We put ads in the Italian and Serbian newspapers, we ran ads on Triple J, we wrote to the drama clubs of schools. We wanted to open up [the role] to where these characters could actually come from, rather than going to the names of teenage actors and actresses that had done the work before. We wanted it to be authentic.
Kershaw: We auditioned more than 3,000 people.
Miranda (Alibrandi): I had to fly myself up to do a cattle call audition … It was almost like a dance audition. They read out the names of the people they wanted to stay after every section.
A couple of years before I’d suffered the trauma of losing a friend, and I think I could access those emotions of anger and fear when I had to improv those scenes about John’s death.
Woods: The way [Miranda] took on that role was pretty amazing. She really had an enormous amount of stamina and understanding of the character and heart and passion for it. She just did a beautiful job.
‘There weren’t that many Australian movies that dealt with suicide’
Marchetta: John Barton’s death in the novel is at the end, and people who were reading the film script were saying: “We don’t want a death like that dominating the climax of the story. Why don’t you take it out?” And I remember thinking: “Oh I can’t take this out.” I distinctly remember that putting his death in the middle of the story would be a catalyst for change for [Josie].
I was teaching while I was writing the script and when it was filmed, so I had the pleasure of my students being in a lot of the group scenes. Some of my students are the pallbearers in the funeral scene.
Miranda: I find it really, really hard to watch people be pallbearers when they carry someone they love or care about. So for me, even though it wasn’t real, I found that really confronting to watch.
Woods: That image of the boys from the school putting their friend on their shoulders was one of the first images I had about the film. I always knew that that was really important, because I could not imagine what it would be like to carry your friend under those circumstances.
It was just about getting the tone right … Obviously everybody’s really upset, but also you didn’t want it to be just totally morbid. I think that the music definitely helped with that.
At one stage we wanted [Jeff Buckley’s] Hallelujah. But it had already been in so many films.
Kershaw: Once we actually got that beautiful voice from Cordrazine’s lead singer [Hamish Cowan, singing U2’s With or Without You], there was just no turning back. It was just heartbreaking.
Woods: It lifted it into a different sphere. It felt more poignant to younger people than the original U2 version.
Miranda: It was a tough day, but a good day because I knew we nailed it and knew we’d all taken it seriously. There weren’t that many Australian movies where they dealt with suicide – certainly that I’d seen – so it felt pretty important to do it right.
I think the anger and confusion when someone kills themselves was conveyed really well in the film. It was also conveyed really well that life goes on after that person passes. it’s sort of a message to say, if that person had survived maybe they would have gone on with their life in a happy way as well. It’s sad to see their story end and everyone else’s continue. That’s what really gets people.
Kershaw: My daughter, who I was pregnant with in 1997 – we used to refer to her as our Alibrandi baby – she actually watched it and had no idea about [my involvement]. When she was about 11 or 12, she said to me: “Mum, I just can’t believe I just watched this film. And I’ve been trying to watch it for a long time but every time it gets to a particular part, I just have to stop and I can’t keep going. This time, I managed to watch it all and it’s my favourite film.” I said: “Oh darling, what film was that?” And she said Looking for Alibrandi. I said: “So which was the scene that always made you stop?” and it was the funeral scene.
‘Everybody laughed and cried and was quiet in all the right places’
Miranda: We were just so proud of it; we’d all just worked so hard. We were excited too because it was Kate and my first big film and we went through it together. Kate always had this thing like: “I want to go see it with an audience and see what their reaction is, like where they are laughing, where they are crying.”
Woods: I said: “You know, it’s an Australian film. It will be off in a week.” I took Pia because she hadn’t really seen it in the theatre before.
We went to the local cinema at Broadway, near Sydney University. And we could barely get a seat – we had to sit right down the front. Pia was trying to hide because a couple of people had started to recognise her by then. She was watching and [her face] was too big and too close to her, and I was kind of watching what was happening behind [us], when everybody laughed and cried and was quiet in all the right places …
I don’t think I’ve ever had an experience like that ever again in my life. It actually touched people in the way the story touched us … I’ll never forget it, ever.
Marchetta: So much love went into that production, and I think it shows. There’s just something about it that still has that charm and has that passion. I could look at it and I could point out all the flaws of course, but it’s a piece of work that I’m so incredibly proud of being a part of, because I was partof it – I wasn’t the whole.
‘It was a new thing to see migrant stories in film told beautifully’
Woods: It touches everybody. I recognise my own youth in it. We all have that up and down, you know. It’s wonderful, it’s terrible. There’s no middle ground when you’re 16.
Kershaw: There was nothing perfect about Josie. She was every woman. She was the outsider, and we all always feel like the outsider.
Miranda: It was a new thing to see migrant stories in film told really beautifully and where they weren’t the kind of quirky, annoying sidekick.
Marchetta: I certainly believe that there is not enough cultural diversity in our films. I’ve said so many times that my greatest pride was that Josie Alibrandi was the first teenage character of Australian film in the 21st century. I just think that it should have said this is the direction we’re going with our storytelling, and I don’t think we have. I think that we’re probably starting now, but what makes me so sad is it seems as if there’s a big chunk of our cultural identity that hasn’t been told.
• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org