Playtime director, Stef Smith’s happy/sad short-form series It’s Fine, I’m Fine is the only Australian production to be in the official selection in-competition at CanneSeries 2022. That’s quite a coup for the director who co-wrote, directed and co-produced the series. Her flair for memorable characters and surprising approaches shines through.
The series will receive its world premiere at CanneSeries during MIPTV April 1-6, with its first season comprised of 12 six-ten-minute episodes. Photoplay will screen the first two episodes at the festival.
It’s the story of a suburban Australian psychologist who helps her patients explore the mess, humour, melancholy and unexpected magic of life, its realism interwoven with a black comedy twist. With raining ash, delusions of grandeur and magical poo, the series asks, for all of humanity’s idiosyncrasies and flaws, how or why do we choose to persist and find the magic?
Smith commented, “This show melds together three things I love – happy/sad stories, magical realism & therapy. Though I don’t go to therapy nearly as much as I should (but who does!?!). As a storyteller, I’m really drawn to the happy/sad moments. Look at the world around us, it’s impossible to be happy all the time. Life is too complex for that. Are we all alone in the Universe? I dunno but sometimes it sure as shit feels like it. I find embracing sadness is a really healthy and liberating thing.
“Shooting 80 pages in eight days during a pandemic was a terrifying challenge only made possible because of our amazing team. I’m a sucker for an underdog story and for our ‘little project that could’, to end up screening in a place like Cannes, is overwhelming and thrilling to say the least.”
The CanneSeries Short-Form competition was created to highlight new, promising and innovative formats, which reflect current and new ways of watching series. British novelist and screenwriter, Anthony Horowitz, heads the Short-Form Competition jury, which also includes British actress, Chinenye Ezeudu (Sex Education), and French actor, director and composer, Marc Ruchmann (Plan Coeur). The Best Short Form Series award will be handed out during the festival’s closing ceremony.
The film’s other co-producers were Clare Delaney, Iain Crittenden and Florence Tourbier. Executive producers were Annette Davey (Pam & Tommy, Maid), Gracie Otto (Heartbreak High, Seriously Red) and Oliver Lawrance (Sweet Country, Berlin Syndrome). And the project was made with principal investment from Screen Australia and development support from Screen NSW.
The rise and rise of Stef Smith has included Celeste Barber’s Shower Talk for Pantene, some wonderful work for Young Henry’s beer, Bumble’s Finding a Best Friend to Pee with and humorous spots for Osmocote, several Netflix/Telstra collaborations, Domain, Drano and Jaycar. Ironically, it all began with an edgy drama called, Joy Boy, about a young gay man caught between his evangelical church and emergent sexuality.
Read more about Stef Smith’s star quality here:
