The Film

Even Emus Need to Dance is the story of Sue Stevens fighting back. Her husband Phillip, has recently died and she's a bit lost. But he's left her a palatial Queenslander with wide verandahs and acres of fields and garden. It's in Maleny, a hinterland town where many city folk want to live and where houses and land have shot up in price.

Now, as she faces her 70th birthday alone, Sue overhears her greedy sons-in-law plotting to diddle her out of her spread and get her into a retirement village so they can sell up and make a fortune. Their wives, Sue's two daughters, are torn between loyalty to their men and concern for mum. What will Sue do? Give in or fight? A chance meeting brings her new energy and soon she's leading them all a merry chase as she tangos off with an emu farmer. The sons-in-law find that the only way to regain control is to introduce another love interest into Sue's life.

Not an earth shattering story line, its true. But Even Emus is a full length feature made under special circumstances. Feature films and big bucks almost always go together. Several million dollars hardly gets you started these days. So, what happens when a country town decides it would like to make its own feature film and there's only $5,000 available?

Even Emus shows that, when you have a talented community and a generous passing film maker who knows what he's doing, amazing things are possible. A village can gate crash the movie world. Or can it?

Even Emus was never meant to be more than a village film, made by and for Maleny, population 4,000. Local screenings and DVDs in the Co op, that was the size of the dream. But now, those involved have become more ambitious, (no surprise) hoping that Even Emus might make it out of town as well. At the least, far enough to inspire other small communities to give the process a try.

Follow the lead of... Even Emus need to dance. The world's first micro-budget fictomentary.