Sweet Tooth (2019)
23’ short film
writer & director - Shannon Ashlyn
producer - Katherine Shearer
Watch the Teaser Trailer below.
Albert Einstein once famously said ‘If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be even more intelligent, read them more fairy tales!’ True as that may be, many aspects of the most well-known fairy tales are outdated - especially for girls!
Sweet Tooth, however, is made by women. This film is about changing the status quo. For starters, the hero in Sweet Tooth is a heroine and she is very unlike the princesses or eligible maidens we usually read about in the Grimm's stories. What’s more, this is the story of a villain, a character who rarely even gets a look in! In the tradition of Disney’s Maleficent, this is a new kind of fairy tale - with a female protagonist we’ve never seen before!
Sweet Tooth is a story about family, an adventure into the unknown, but at heart it’s a story about being brave and taking your fate into your own hands - no matter what.
Watch the Behind The Scenes below.
FESTIVALS & AWARDS
CILECT 2019
International Competition
WINNER - Best Short Film Australasia
CANNES CINEMA DES ANTIPODES 2019
Official Selection
FESTIVAL DES ANTIPODES ST. TROPEZ 2019
Official Selection
WINNER - Nicholas Baudin Award - Best Film
International Premiere
CINEFEST OZ 2019
Official Selection
Australian Premiere
FLICKERFEST 2020
Official Selection
MANCHESTER FILM FESTIVAL 2020
Official Selection
UK Premiere
VAIL FILM FESTIVAL COLORADO 2020
Official Selection
US Premiere
Already in her 2014 Oscar acceptance speech, Cate Blanchett asserted that movies about women make money: ‘Those of us in the industry who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films with women at the centre are niche experiences: they are not. Audiences want to see them! And in fact, they earn money’.
A global shift towards female-driven screen content is not only culturally essential, but economically wise as well. We, the women, are buying the most cinema tickets and subscriptions to streaming platforms and want content that speaks to us.
Even though Sweet Tooth is a short film, it deliberately references the kind of widely appealing, mainstream cinema that has historically been made by men. It’s a short film that hopefully feels like it could be a feature.
Ava DuVernay, Patty Jenkins and Cate Shortland are all trailblazing in the blockbuster space. These women are visionary creatives who refuse to be relegated to lower budget filmmaking. They are actively pushing to bring female voices to movies that have global reach, especially with young audiences.
By embracing sweeping imagery, heavy production design, visual effects and orchestral film scoring, Sweet Tooth is trialing workflows on a tiny scale and perhaps even laying some early tracks for future career paths into the world of tentpole pictures.
PRODUCTION DETAILS
Sweet Tooth was produced with a budget contribution from the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) combined with a public crowdfunding campaign.
Even with the phenomenal help from family, friends and generous strangers, it was only possible to make the film thanks to the generosity of our volunteer cast and crew who believed in this story wholeheartedly.
The crew was made up of both students and professionals and, similarly, whereas some of our actors were seasoned pros, others were stepping in front of the camera for the very first time.
Sweet Tooth was filmed over nine days in New South Wales, Australia: four on location in the Blue Mountains, two in the studios at AFTRS in Sydney and three days in the magnificent Sugar Pine forest. Devastatingly, these the forest was destroyed in the 2019/2020 bushfires. The film is proud to be scheduled to screen at fundraisers to support the affected communities and local regeneration projects.
Q & A With Shannon Ashlyn & Katherine Shearer
Why did you choose the fairytale of Hansel & Gretel to base your film on?
Shannon Ashlyn: Actually, it all began with a curiosity of what a life-sized, somewhat creepy but totally amazing version of the famous gingerbread house that I had imagined so vividly in my childhood could look like! I knew I wanted to retell a fairy tale from the perspective of the female villain but in many ways, I feel this particular story picked me... It lured me with rich images of dark pine woods, ruby red candy apples, gingerbread doorways and a glistening roof of frosty icing... Who could resist?
How did you re-create a wintery, European feel when you were shooting in Australian summertime?
Shannon Ashlyn: Ha! Yes, who’s idea was that?! Well, once I knew the story would be set in 1780 (roughly 30 years before the Brothers Grimm published Hansel & Gretel) I went to my incredible production designer, Emma Bourke. I thought ‘She’s either going to love it or think I’m officially crazy, so I might as well find out right away!’ Needless to say, she thought I was stark raving mad! But she came around... eventually! I mean who doesn’t want to play with 20 kilos of bio-degradable snow?
Katherine Shearer: As for the European feel, yes, that was tricky. We were lucky to find a heritage location that allowed us to create all the town spaces in one place but we relied on the weather for the cloud cover we desperately needed to make the team’s hard work look authentic. That was scary, being the producer with no Plan B! We were setting up in scorching heat but, no word of a lie, as the cameras began to roll, rain clouds rolled in - and stayed there perfectly for all the exterior shooting.
How did you convince Cate Blanchett to join the Sweet Tooth team?
Shannon Ashlyn: The answer is very simple: we just asked her - from the heart and with zero expectations. Mad as it sounds, we never imagined anyone else narrating, so when it finally came to it, I plucked up the courage to record a piece to camera explaining why I had written the film and why I believed its message might be something Cate may also deem important. Admittedly, it felt surreal to do but I forged ahead anyway and thank goodness I did...!
Katherine Shearer: That was the first, crucial step. But after that, it still took a lot of faith and support from the people around us to get our message to Cate. For instance, our casting director and mentors at AFTRS really put themselves out there for us, vouching for us, even as first-time filmmakers. That was incredibly humbling, and we are so thankful. The fact that, in the end, Cate actually agreed was - and is - a dream come true.
photography - David Collins
copyright - AFTRS 2019