Shooting on a shoestring

Bews il-Baħar, release date yet to be announced, is Nicole Cuschieri’s first proper film, quote unquote. She tells David Schembri that all the money’s gone and offers him a sandwich.

Getting ready for another scene on Bews il-Baħar.

Nicole Cuschieri wears many hats. She works behind the scenes on big-budget films being shot in Malta, she runs Creative Island, a local artist database, she organises burlesque shows and she makes short films.

At present, she is wearing two hats on top of each other: she’s producing and directing Bews il-Baħar, what is, in her own words, her “first proper film”.

“About two years ago I came up with the idea, applied for funding and luckily I was awarded a small budget,” she says.

Set in the Mediterranean sea, the short film (estimated to clock in at the 10-minute mark) is, in the director’s own words, “quite eerie”. “There are quite a few shocks in it, it’s quite psychological.”

The story itself has Odyssean echoes. Two fishermen, father and son, are out at sea while a storm is brewing. Seeing an island nearby, the son decides to dock there, but the father, a superstitious type, doesn’t agree because the island is cursed. Eventually the son ends up there on his own, with “two strange characters for company”.

The father is played by Pierre Stafrace, a veteran of the local scene: “He’s tanned, and he comes across as really superstitious, really Maltese… he’s perfectly cast for the role,” Cuschieri says.

The son is played by Chris Galea, whose role in the making of the film extends to having written the screenplay. The cast is rounded up by the fresh faces of Tia Reljic and Kathleen Parsons.

Anyone familiar with the local film scene will have noticed that Bews il-Baħar is not the only film based around tales of the sea that is currently being produced. Rebecca Cremona’s Simshar shares not only the setting (a fishing boat at sea) but also key cast and crew members, including Stafrace and Bews il-Baħar’s director of photography, Martin Bonniċi. Cuschieri insists it all boils down to coincidence: “this film has been in progress for two years, and it’s a totally different story”.

The small size of Malta’s film industry doesn’t only translate into personnel being shared across productions, it also entails people taking on multiple roles, a combination which at times can be uncomfortable.

Cuschieri admits that two hats on one head can be a tad unwieldy: “I’m director and producer, not two things which should go together,” she says.

After having sorted out insurance, generators, equipment, mobile toilets and refreshments for cast and crew during the shoot, she has just discovered she needs a tow for the generator.

“Every day it’s something new,” she laughs. At various points during the interview-cum-lunch, Cuschieri offers this interviewer parts of her sandwich or the crisps accompanying it. Cuschieri is a firm believer in sharing, and in giving people their dues – as far as it is possible.

“My philosophy, in any project I do, no matter what the budget, is that I always pay everyone. The budget for this film is all going towards expenses, which were a lot, so it really didn’t leave that much but everything else I split between everyone as fairly as possible.”

With equipment costs eating up most of the €7,500 the Malta Film Fund awarded the project, this meant there wasn’t much to go around, making the film more of a labour of love than anything else.

Creativity is not something she restricts to the artistic side of things, and after “a lot of begging”, she managed to eke out sponsorships for some of the hidden costs during shooting.

Because the budget could in no way stretch to using the water tank in Rinella for the sea shots, the final storyline of the film depends, up to a point, on what the sea looked like on the day of the shoot.

Once ready, Cuschieri plans to submit the film to international festivals. Even so, the dialogue is all in Maltese, with subtitles provided for the little pocket of the world that doesn’t speak the language.

“This story wouldn’t have made any sense in English, and I believe that if you’re using Maltese actors you’re going to bring out their true skill and talent only if they are relaxed... I’ve seen actors putt-ing on accents and it doesn’t feel natural.”

She believes the Film Fund has been instrumental in opening more doors to local artists interested in working in film.

“If I were a foreigner watch-ing a Maltese film I’d find it fascinating...”