78-year-old Vina is fading away in an aged care facility, her memories all but gone. The monotony of her existence is disrupted when her daughter and granddaughter take her on an outing to the ocean. Once submerged in the water, Vina’s memories instantly return, along with a mysterious underwater girl visible only to her.
A profound narrative, And The Ocean Agreed was brought to life by Tanya Modini and supported by producers Stephanie Dower and Luisa Martiri, offers a unique exploration of dementia, identity, and liberation. The inspiration for this story came from a conversation Tanya had with a friend while walking along the beach, discussing the friend’s relationship with her mother and dementia. Tanya wondered if revisiting a favourite place or experience could trigger memories, just as music sometimes does for dementia patients.
Nick L’Barrow spoke with Tanya Modini about deciding what part of a bigger story makes for a good short film, the rough conditions filming in water, and her personal connections to this story.
Nick: I’d love to start with the inception of a “short film” idea. And The Ocean Agreed feels like it’s a small part of a much bigger story. So, I’m curious to know how you decided what part of that overall bigger story you thought would work in its own, self-contained, short film version?
Tanya Modini: Okay, I’ll go back to where the inspiration came from! And that’s the fact that I’ve had some very close friends and family members who have very advanced dementia. And a couple of them have died along the way.
I was walking along the beach one day with a friend of mine, and she was telling me about her mother’s dementia, and as I was looking out at the water and I was thinking, “I know people with advanced dementia can have their memory triggered when they listen to music they loved.”
So, I wondered if the same could happen if you took them back to a place they loved, like the beach. I just kind of started to get the beginnings of that idea. I could see this old lady diving into the water, and coming up, and her whole expression has changed because she’s got her memory back.
It’s sort of based on that personal experience of having people around me who’ve got dementia and watching what that does.
Nick: How often does your own creative curiosity expand past the story that you’re actually writing? Do you know what comes before and after these events in a lot of detail?
Tanya Modini: Oh, absolutely. I normally go, “Hey, here’s an idea. How does it end?” I usually start at the ending first and then work backwards from there, before I even put pen to paper. It rattles around in my head for a very long time.
I use music a lot to trigger ideas in my head, as well, and then just build up a beginning, a middle, and an end. But generally speaking, the end does come first for me in a lot of cases and the story is crafter predominantly in my head.
Nick: What sort of music were you listening to when putting this story together?
Tanya Modini: Look, a variety of music! I have this playlist that is my film writing playlist, and if I’m in the car, I just put it on, and it just seems to trigger new ideas in my head. I think the act of listening to music gets rid of all other thoughts. It calms you and new thoughts can just come in. There was a lot of The 5th Dimension, and those cheesy kind of 70s pop songs.
Nick: I think art in general has so much power to it, and your short film shows that by Vina painting this beach that she loves so much at the beginning of the story. Outside of music, how has art acted for you as either a form of catharsis or understanding? And was that something that you feel that’s important to highlight in your work?
Tanya Modini: Most definitely! I think this film in particular helped me work through the couple of deaths of people that I’ve known. But also, I have written a pilot script for a series that’s sort of unpacking issues around my family members and stuff like that.
I think dealing with things with humour, you can go on a really cathartic journey and things that you never realised about people started coming from nowhere, and you’re writing it all up and down on the page. It really does help to put all the pieces together.
Nick: Speaking of dealing with things through humour, the opening scene of this film is great, so I’d be remised not to mention Jenny Wynter who is a hilarious scene stealer. How did Jenny initially come aboard, and what was the process of creating those songs for the film?
Tanya Modini: Jenny and I met on a talent camp, actually, back in 2019. I’ve known Jenny for a while! And when I was listening to The 5th Dimension, I was imagining this woman on stage, she didn’t care whether these people lived or died in front of her, it was just all about her in this moment. And I thought Jenny would be so cool for this.
I looked into getting the rights to certain music, then having Jenny sing it, but it was just hellishly expensive. So, Jenny just said, “What if I write a couple of songs?” So she wrote the first and final song. And, she also recorded the one playing in the car when they all sing together. She wrote those songs in like 2 seconds. She’s so brilliant.
Nick: And The Ocean Agreed frames dementia in a very empathetic lens, whereas other films have used it for horror or shock value. What was the experience like in trying to understand what a character like Vina was going through in this story?
Tanya Modini: Oh, it was vitally important. I think that opening scene is me saying, “Look at the way we treat the elderly people in our society”. It’s with a huge lack of respect. And so, I wasn’t going to portray it in a way that was any other way than with empathy.
I was lucky enough to have Chrissie Page as the lead, who is a phenomenal actor. And Chrissie was just up for anything. Whilst a couple of other people I spoke to about the role were concerned about the water, Chrissie did her self-tape in the water! She’d grown up on the beaches in northern New South Wales, or somewhere like that. She was a such a delight to have on set.
Nick: I can only imagine the challenges you faced filming on the beaches, and in the water. But the film still manages to look incredible. What was that experience like for yourself?
Tanya Modini: Yeah, the ocean on that day was not playing! It was not a happy camper! The swell was enormous, and we had a 78-year-old and a 9-year old, and I wanted to keep them safe at all costs.
It was rugged. Chrissie got dumped, and we watched it all happen through the lens, going round and round. But there is a corner where we shot that was very, very shallow, and if you shoot it at a certain angle, it looked like we were in deep water. But really, it was maybe 30 centimetres deep. Everyone was lying on their stomachs basically.
And the young girl, Flossie, who’d never been in front of a camera before, was just from the local Surf Life Saving Club and swimming squad. But it was like she’d always lived in front of a lens! She just knew exactly what to do with very minimal direction! So, we shot what we could shoot there, but due to the churn, it was a bit murky.
But this young girl had a pool. And we took a skeleton crew, just me and two cinematographers, and we shot those scenes underwater. Julian Panetta, who is the brilliant cinematographer that I’ve worked with on both shorts, and I had storyboarded that scene quite intensively. So, we knew exactly what the scenes and shots of them swimming doubled over each other would look like. That pool though was 12 degrees, so we could only put them in the water for like 40 seconds before getting them out and warming them up with hot drinks and blankets. We had to do it about four times. And they were brilliant.
But this is also a testament to the amazing crew that we had there as well. They often get overlooked here. They spent two full days on this beach, getting beaten around. And no one got angry. Everybody was professional. Everybody was happy. We had a great time. And without that crew, we can’t make the film. Julian can’t shoot the film without those people. They were absolutely remarkable on both the nursing home shoot, but also in particular, that beach shoot. Because it was horrible.
Thank you to Tanya for taking the time to chat, and to Think Tank Communications for organising the interview. And The Ocean Agreed is currently on the film festival circuit around the world.
