British Flower, Davo Hardy and Kieran Hudson.

Here at Cinema Australia, we often cite Davo Hardy as being one of the busiest independent filmmakers around.

His latest streak of productivity continues to uphold that assessment, as he presently has a short film, his sixth feature and a small TV cameo on the go, all at once.

Earlier this year, Davo dropped the surprise short doco, Desire/Ability; an enchanting queer-themed piece about his close friend Matthew Archibald, who is profoundly deaf and has cerebral palsy.

March was National Cerebral Palsy Awareness month, which matched perfectly with the film’s release date, along with marking the ten year anniversary of friendship between the director and his subject.

Matthew also notably appeared in Davo’s third feature, A Silent Agreement (2017), and the short romance, Aaron’s Consent (2014), which screened as part of that year’s Focus on Ability festival. Both of these films had roles custom-written for Matthew, with all of his dialogue delivered in Auslan as a means of Deaf representation in Australian cinema.

Currently, Desire/Ability is doing the festival circuit, picking up praise as locally as the Erotica Art & Film Festival (based in Melbourne) and as far afield as Maharashtra, India (as part of the Out & Loud – Pune International Queer Film Festival).

You can follow more news about Desire/Ability at its dedicated Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/DesireAbilityDoco

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But that documentary was just the the appetizer!

Davo has also spent most of 2023 producing his sixth feature film, The Switchblade Sisterhood.

This latest production follows a young woman grieving the death of her mother. Discovering she has a half-sister, bearing a grudge over their late mother’s abandonment of her, the two take solace in exploring the deceased’s belongings; where they find a book on radical second-wave feminism and a literal switchblade.

Both of which are used as weapons of choice in a bitter rivalry about fractured families, gender roles and personal, contemporary and intergenerational politics.

Like all of Davo’s work, The Switchblade Sisterhood is guaranteed to be a blend of confronting and enlightening, as his past features have already dealt with such heavy themes as drug addiction, religion, expression of sexuality and the grief surrounding a life half-lived.

Production on The Switchblade Sisterhood only wrapped less than two weeks ago, but we are excited to see more details as they develop.

More information about The Switchblade Sisterhood can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/TheSwitchbladeSisterhood

Finally, as if directing a feature and a short film in just a few short months wasn’t enough, Davo has also been acting for the small screen; appearing in a brief cameo alongside Joanne Froggatt of Downton Abbey fame, in the upcoming six-part series North Shore, airing May 10 on Channel 10 and 10 Play on Demand.

With a handful of new projects in development, and 2023 barely past the halfway point, Cinema Australia is looking forward to the stellar output of this extraordinary auteur and his collaborators, in the months ahead.

In the meantime, you can catch Desire/Ability and all of Davo’s previous films on his dedicated streaming website; aptly named www.davohardyfilms.com