“Bold yet nuanced, My Fiona is a compelling drama that faces death straight in the face… Walker playfully injects moments of humour and joy into her debut, providing a sense of comic relief among the emotional turmoil.”  — The People’s Movies

Following selection in BFI Flare in 2020, Australian filmmaker Kelly Walker is set to debut her first feature film, MY FIONA, at Queer Screen’s 13^th annual Mardi Gras Film Festival on 23 February, 2021.

Starring Jeanette Maus (Charm City Kings, Your Sister’s Sister) and Corbin Reid (How to Get Away With Murder), MY FIONA is a nuanced and deeply moving film about loss, love and everything in between.

Following the suicide of her best friend, Jane (Maus) finds purpose in helping her friend’s wife (Reid) with their seven year old son. In doing so, she becomes inadvertently drawn into an intimate relationship bound by grief that’s potentially catastrophic to the healing for all those involved.

The story is close to writer/director Walker’s heart, whose babysitter/surrogate older sister died of suicide when she was 12 years old. Says Walker, “This traumatic event would be a part of shaping the person I would inevitably become. The feeling I wanted to convey most is the internal rollercoaster of grief. The ups and downs that can push you around like a riptide; camouflaging feelings, falling in love to mask the pain, possessively competing for the one we lost, and obsessively searching for answers as a temporary salve. It was important to me to walk the tightrope of sadness and humour, and at times appearing in the very same beat.”

Walker was also inspired to make MY FIONA as a way to come out more publicly as a bisexual. “I had been frustrated with the lack of our stories portrayed on screen and in my journey of celebrating my sexuality, I grappled with the fact that it wasn’t an ‘aha’ moment and it took a long time to voice and stand behind the feelings I had within.”

Walker is an Australian multi-hyphenate award winning filmmaker. She’s had multiple short films in the festival circuit, most notably THE BROWNLIST, directed and edited by Walker. THE BROWNLIST had a successful festival run, including multiple Oscar qualifiers and the Jury Award for Best Short Film at Bentonville Film Festival. Recently, she was invited to participate in Australian’s In Film’s Writers Lab for her script MY FIONA and her latest script, VICE VERSA, the real story of Edythe Eyde; the woman that created the first magazine for lesbians, is in early stages of development.

Based in the US, Walker is available for phone interviews and a confidential screener link is available to media upon request for review and interview purposes.

More info and tickets are available here 

SOURCE: queerscreen.org.au

Editor’s Note: It is with great sadness that we advise that our lead actress, Jeanette Maus, tragically passed away from cancer on Sunday January 24, 2021. While reflecting on a film about losing a dear friend, the loss of Jeanette is being felt deeply by all involved in the production.

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