Topless Women Talk About Their Lives

A few friends try to put their complicated lives in order. In the centre are Liz, a reluctant mother-to-be following a missed abortion appointment, and Ant, a script-writer who develops a psychosis after her first film is a flop.
The title of the film, which is peculiar, to say the least, simply popped into the head of writer/director Harry Sinclair as he was wandering around town, and this started him fantasizing the various characters into existence. He called up some actor friends of his, and asked if they wanted to help him out with the project. All the footage was shot in their apartments, none of which were prepared beforehand for the filming. The dirty dishes, for example, were left untouched in the sink.
It was precisely because of Sinclair's talent for making low budget films that the New Zealand Film Commission dared to finance ”Topless Women Talk About Their Lives”, even though there was no written script to fall back on. The dialogue was written just a few hours before the actors arrived on set, and rehearsals were out of the question; the scenes were to seem mundanely natural. To strengthen the impression of immediateness the cameraman, Dale McCready, used mostly a hand-held camera, and the lights were set up in such a way as to allow him to move freely in any direction he chose. This also meant that the actors had unrest-ricted movement, and, for example, did not have to search for markings on the floor. Furthermore, all actors wore their own clothes and were without makeup when the camera started rolling.
''We started by breaking every conceivable rule, and then gradually returned to the norms, and I think that's definitely the most effective way of finding your own personal style'', McCready says, ''The entire production was a challenge for me. Each day I went to work having no idea what was going to happen. I had 10 minutes to prepare a scene and 10 minutes to set up lights; there was never any time to make changes.''
Lotta Svedberg

Premiärstatus
Nordisk premiär: Medverkande
Danielle Comack, Joel Tbeck, Ian Hughes: Producent
Fiona Copland, Harry Sinclair: Manus
Harry Sinclair: Foto
Dale McCready: Musik
Flying Nun Records: Talat språk
English