Em visits Jessie in Melbourne for a weekend of laughter, and late-night truths. What begins as easy reconnection slowly shifts. Fwends is a sharply observed, gently aching study of friendship, change, and the quiet distance that grows between the people who once knew you best.
2025
Fwends
Director
Sophie Somerville
Runtime
96 Minutes
Country
Australia
Classification
Unclassified 15+
| Sophie Somerville’s Fwends is a breezy, quietly resonant debut that captures the tension between closeness and drift with remarkable clarity. It follows Em (Emmanuelle Mattana), a Sydney-based lawyer grappling with workplace burnout, who travels to Melbourne for a weekend with Jessie (Melissa Gan), her childhood friend who is navigating a heartbreak. Their easy rapport, built on shared history and quiet understanding, begins to shift. Improvisation-based storytelling is rarely attempted in Australian cinema, and even more rarely achieved with this much warmth, wit and emotional clarity. Somerville, working with Mattana and Gan as co-writers and performers, creates a work that feels lived-in and attuned to the things we struggle to say aloud. Fwends lingers in the space between comfort and discomfort, between affection and distance, and asks what remains when intimacy begins to shift in subtle, irreversible ways. Recognised for its rousing, rare, funny and powerful friendship between women, Fwends premiered at the Berlinale Forum and won the Caligari Film Prize 2025 for stylistic and thematic innovation. |
Berlin – Caligari Film Prize 2025, Cinema Jove – Audience Award, Sydney, Melbourne
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Film Credits
Director
Sophie Somerville
Year
2025
Country
Australia
Language
English
Type
Feature & Fiction
Program Strand
World Cinema
Producer
Sophie Somerville, Carter Looker & Sarah Hegge-Taylor
Writer
Sophie Somerville, Emmanuelle Mattana & Melissa Gan
Cinematographer
Carter Looker
Editor
Sophie Somerville
Cast
Melissa Gan & Emmanuelle Mattana
Music
Mike Tilbrook
Film Source
Bonsai Films
Genre
Coming of Age, Drama, Feel-Good & Women
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