Senior Teaching Fellow Darren Paul Fisher and his Bond University Film and Television students are getting ready to celebrate the premiere of Frequencies in cinemas across North America on Thursday, May 22.
Originally filmed as OXV: The Manual, the multi-award winning feature film was written, directed and produced by Fisher who co-opted 19 of his Film and Television students to work on post-production at Bond’s state-of-the-art editing studios.
Since premiering at Canada’s prestigious FanTasia International Film Festival last year, the film has notched up five awards, including most recently the Best US/International Feature Narrative at the Kansas City Film Festival in April.
But the excitement has reached fever-pitch with this week’s announcement that top US distributor, Filmbuff, will release the movie – now re-named Frequencies – in North American cinemas and on iTunes this month.
“To get a nationwide release in cinemas in the US is a very big deal,” said Fisher whose writing and directing credits include Inbetweeners (2001) and Popcorn (2007).
“Even I’m starting to get excited… and I’m pretty cynical!”
Having recently returned from Kansas where he was flown in as a special guest of the film festival and appeared on FOX News to promote the film, Fisher in now on his way to London where it will have its UK premiere on the final day of the London Sci-Fi Film Festival.
“Tickets for the screening sold out in just 20 minutes and the organisers have had to move it to a bigger screen to make more tickets available,” said Fisher.
“Our final outing on the festival circuit will be the Chicago Critics Film Festival where it will screen on Monday, May 12. This is the only festival created and curated entirely by film critics so we are thrilled to have been selected for this one.”
Described as a “scientific-philosophical romance”, OXV: The Manual / Frequencies was filmed on location in London and Cambridge prior to Fisher’s move to Australia.
After joining Bond’s film school as a Senior Teaching Fellow, the writer/director/producer got his students involved in the post-production processes of sound design, mixing and second unit filming, giving them invaluable practical experience on a professional production as part of their course curricula.
“One student – Julian Pennisi – was eventually employed as the Sound Designer, overseeing the entire sound post-production of the movie but all of the students involved now have their own listing on the International Movie Database (IMDb),” said Fisher.
“Having their first professional credits on a feature film like this is a major milestone for students embarking on a career where the toughest hurdle is getting a foot in the door.”
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