We speak to Australian directors of gripping tale of gendered violence, The Moths Will Eat Them Up

The Moths Will Eat Them Up is a fantastic short film from Queensland in Australia. Telling a story close to the heart of the directors, in particular Tanya Modini who based the script on an experience she herself had on a Sunshine Coast train, the movie speaks to the threat of gendered violence, and the constant risk assessments women must make in their everyday lives. 

Tanya not only wrote the film, but co-directed it with Luisa Martiri. 

“We teamed up together through the Screen Queensland RIDE Initiative,” says Luisa. 

“Tanya had submitted and was successful with her script for Moths Will Eat Them Up, but she had applied as just a single person - she didn’t have a team around her. The Executive Producers thought I would be a good fit with Tanya, and we met each other, hit it off, and got straight into it.”

It didn’t take long for the duo to hit it off. Per Luisa, “I think the turnaround from meeting each other to starting pre-production was literally maybe an hour”. 

For a short film, working with a limited budget, it looks incredible. But despite the funding granted to them by Screen Queensland, making the film look as good as it does was still a challenge - not least of which because of the ambition behind it! 

“It was initially very hard to find locations. Filming on live trains is very expensive. We were lucky enough to find a decommissioned train, which in fact was the same model I was on that night [when the incident that inspired the script occurred]. We ended up finding it in a warehouse out the back of Ipswich, and it solved a lot of our problems,” said Tanya. 

“We had a lot of elements in the script that were ambitious and challenging for the budget we had, but we managed to pull it off somehow,” said Luisa. 

Despite the directors’ assertion of continuity errors, however, there is very little to criticize in the editing or direction of the piece. The film transitions seamlessly, blending the distinctly real with the ultimately surreal in a way that will have your heart thudding in your chest throughout. 

The film has been blazing a trail since its debut to acclaim at the Brisbane International Film Festival in 2021. It has subsequently been selected for the Sydney Film Festival, where it won the Dendy Award for Best Live Action Short and the Rouben Mamoulian Award for Best Director, as well as the St Kilda Film Festival where it was nominated for Best Actor and Best Original Score, along with Best Achievement in Sound Post-Production.

Most recently, the film has been nominated for an AACTA award for Best Short Film 2022. It’s also in contention for an Oscar Nomination for Best Short Film.

“It’s unbelievable really,” says Luisa. “We didn’t go into this wanting to win awards. We just wanted to make the best film we possibly could, and somehow we’ve just gotten all of this recognition, which has been amazing.”

The film has been picked up for distribution by Magnet Film in Berlin, which means that after its Festival/Awards run has concluded, it could very well be finding its way to screen near you. When it does, it’s definitely worth a watch - not just because of the remarkably frank and insightful look at what women go through everyday in the simplest of situations, but also because of the incredible filmmaking work from Luisa and Tanya that has helped bring that story to life. 

You can watch our full interview with the co-directing duo below.