Here comes another unexpected discovery from acclaimed independent writer and director Davo Hardy.

As the trailer and poster drops for his eighth feature film, Emily, in Particular, one is immediately struck by the nostalgia and drama of the image. We sat down the filmmaker to discuss this new project and explore his many personal connections to each element behind its creation.

G’day Davo, welcome back to Cinema Australia. It’s always good to have you.

It’s always a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.

What is the plot of Emily, in Particular and what first inspired you to tell this story?

It’s about a seventeen-year-old who finds herself pregnant in the late 1970s, when the post-Whitlam reforms challenged the traditional role of women. This was a time of unprecedented opportunity or the working class but our protagonist has barely even established her prospects, when an ill-advised hook-up makes some choices for her. Meanwhile, her older sister is taking advantage of the free tertiary education of the time, with plans to be among the first women master builders. Given that their widowed father is a construction worker, she is already armed with invaluable education on the subject.

The piece originated as an English exam question I had in year 7. The question was, simply; write a short story where the character encounters an unexpected discovery. In just four pages, I wove a tale so gripping enough that, when it was read aloud to the class, it kept everybody in their seats past the lunch bell. Twenty-five years later, I figured it was time to give it the big screen treatment.

Emily and her sister seem to have vastly different life paths. How did you develop their relationship, and what do their contrasting choices reveal about women’s changing roles at the time?

Although Emily, in Particular is my eighth feature film, several of my earlier titles deal with a similar sibling rivalry dynamic. My debut feature The Lives We Lead followed a pair of polar-opposite sisters over the whole span of their entire lives, but the timeframe in history was always static and set in the present. This was obviously a limitation. Emily, however, is set specifically in 1976, with a lot of attention paid to historical accuracy. We used a lot of slang, political viewpoints and pop-culture references that were very much of that era. We also stacked up our art department and costumes to really immerse the story at that point in time.

I think because Emily’s pregnancy was unplanned and she shoulders a lot of scapegoated blame for that, always being compared unfavourably to her older, more ambitious, sister, it allows for some great and nuanced character development. She really has to search her soul, while constantly combating the external comparisons and judgement from those around her.

The events depicted in Emily, in Particular are marking their 50th anniversaries, right now. It’s a reminder that most of the plot-points, from the outdated gender roles and the fact that neither Emily nor her sister can act autonomously without the support of a male family member, still exists within living memory.

The story began as a Year 7 writing assignment and stayed with you for 25 years. What changed as you adapted that four-page story into a feature film, and what did you most want to preserve?

The original short story only had a couple of characters. The feature expands the world, but given my last few films have been ensemble casts, I wanted to keep the cast of characters small for a change. But they’re all very distinct and dynamic. I was also able to tie in more historical touchstones. There are moments when the characters discuss Gough Whitlam and compare him to Malcolm Fraser, when posters of David Cassidy are lusted after by young women and when curried sausages were an everyday staple for working class Aussie families.

Now that the poster has been released, can you finally lift the veil on a major part of the Emily plot?

Yes, it’s been tough keeping a lid on this one! Our poster depicts our main character, under whom is a red rattler train, on its side, hurtling towards the camera. This is from one of the key scenes, when some of our characters become involved in the Granville train disaster of 1977. The few minutes of train derailment, especially using period-appropriate set pieces, were lifted from the 1998 miniseries The Day of the Roses, which we gratefully thank Beyond Productions for their support in acquiring the rights to. Any filmmaker who has ever tried to license copyrighted material will know what we were up against with this one. And while this footage only constitutes a few minutes of OUR screen time, it completely consumed our budget. But it was all worth it. We also worked closely with independent rail enthusiasts to arrange highly detailed miniatures and gain access to vintage, museum-grade carriages for interior scenes, as well.

The behind-the-scenes effort sounds immense. The Day of the Roses is an acclaimed Australian miniseries which stars Paul Mercurio, who I know you’ve directed on more than one occasion. Did you discover this title when working with him?

No, the opposite! I first saw The Day of the Roses, when it first aired, almost 30 years ago. My mother had been teenager in Homebush, just a couple of suburbs up the line, when the Granville disaster happened. So I’m sure the film was very triggering for her and that instilled a strange sense of affinity in me. Like I was only a few degrees removed from the events that miniseries depicts.

Years later, at film school, we made our bucket lists of industry professionals we wanted to work with. Paul Mercurio was always on mine and when I did reach out to him about getting involved in my films, I remember him being relieved to not have to talk about Strictly Ballroom. At our first meeting, I asked him about The Day of the Roses and he told me all about his experience with it. I briefly flirted with the idea of writing him into Emily, in Particular, as a bit of a nod to that role, but it didn’t really seem appropriate and he’s all but retired from acting now, unfortunately.

What’s next for Emily, in Particular and it’s release… in particular?

[Laughs]. As luck would have it, we’re set to release in January 2027, right around the 50th anniversary of Granville. But I would like to clarify that Emily, in Particular is not an in-depth, true-story docudrama, like the miniseries was. Our film is an original work of fiction that briefly weaves in and out of historical events and contexts of the time in which it is set. Anybody familiar with my work will get the same kitchen-sink family drama that they’re used to, with all the sharp-tongued one-liners that they’ve come to expect.

Mostly, I just feel really accomplished for bringing this project to fruition, so many years after its origins. When the film itself is finally released and starts popping up next year at various festivals, I would be so proud to see it maintain the same audience retention that my original exam did, back in that high school lunch break. Above all, I look forward to keeping Cinema Australia updated with more news on those, as they announce themselves.

You can keep up to date with Emily, in Particular on Facebook here, and via the Davo Hardy Films website here.

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