Hey, Hey, It's Esther Blueburger (2008)

Original title

Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger

Directed by

Cathy Randall

Genre

comedy drama, teen film, coming-of-age film

Country

Australia

Runtime

1h 43m

Rated

12

Rating

5.9 of 10 from 26 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A lonely Jewish 13-year-old girl feels like an outcast at her fancy private school. Her life changes when she befriends a free-spirited girl from the local public school.

awkwardquirkywarmbittersweetgentlehonesthopefullighthearted

What happens

Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger is a 2008 Australian independent teen film written and directed by Cathy Randall. It stars Danielle Catanzariti, Keisha Castle-Hughes and Toni Collette. The film follows Jewish 13-year-old Esther (Catanzariti), an outcast at her posh school, where she has no friends. That changes when she meets nonconformist Sunni (Castle-Hughes) from the local public school. With Esther's character based loosely on her own adolescence, Randall was inspired to write the film's script by what she saw as a lack of role models for teenage girls. In 2002, the script earned her a fellowship to the Los Angeles Film School's Feature Development Programme, where she developed the project, and it was later picked up by Tama Films. Randall returned to Australia for casting, and Catanzariti was eventually chosen in the lead role after she attended an audition for minor roles and extras. Production spanned from October to December 2006, with filming taking place in Adelaide, South Australia and Sydney. The film premiered on 9 February 2008 at the Berlin International Film Festival and was released in Australia on 20 March 2008. It failed to earn back its A$6 million budget with a total domestic gross of approximately $800,000. The film attracted mixed reviews; some critics praised the originality and the acting, though others found Randall's direction dull and the script poorly written. Catanzariti won the Australian Film Institute's Young Actor Award for her performance, and the film received a further three AFI nominations and a nomination for a Film Critics Circle of Australia Award. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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