Finding a Voice That Tells the Truth
One of five Western Sydney creatives selected for In the Room, Greek Australian writer and actor Danielle Stamoulos brings courage and heart to diasporic stories in a special feature film collaboration between Co-Curious and Powerhouse.
‘I’m really grateful for this In the Room opportunity because I’m with such a talented, incredible writing and producing team. We’ve all done TV and feature work, so we now feel like we can put that Western Sydney hat – like still wear it, but put it behind us. We just want to make a really good story that hits people in the heart.’
Midway through her Master of Screenwriting course at the Australian Film Television and Radio School earlier this decade, Danielle Stamoulos felt herself gaining many of the necessary tools of her craft, including story structure, arc and theme. But one thing seemed to elude this emerging Greek Australian writer and performer from Western Sydney. Stamoulos had started out with work experience for director Baz Luhrmann during the very early days of The Great Gatsby, switched to an acting degree, and ended up as a script coordinator on the ABC/Netflix comedy The Letdown. But then at AFTRS, she found what was missing was her own writing voice.
To help guide her, Stamoulos sought out the advice of external tutor and scriptwriter Jessica Redenbach, known most recently for the 2021 miniseries The Unusual Suspects. ‘She really taught me a lot about writing and how it’s not just about the tools,’ says Stamoulos. ‘It’s about making sure that it’s this continuous process of treating your writing with respect, and making sure that you have a sacred container over your work and your voice and what you want to say.’
Stamoulos dug deep and found the courage to tell her own story. Inspired by her , or Greek grandmothers, who emigrated to Australia in the 1960s, she conceived , the short film she wrote and starred in on graduating from AFTRS, which carries an epic emotional journey that belies its 20 minutes. Stamoulos plays Medousa, a wide-eyed and sensitive young woman who follows her best friend to Australia, both to marry men they had only seen in photographs. What was a common experience for Greek Australian women of her grandmothers’ generation is embodied and made particular in Stamoulos’ deeply felt performance, enacted entirely in Greek. ‘I am different,’ Medousa tells her husband-to-be when they first meet, and plays fluently with the idea of difference without othering the diasporic experience, revealing a resilience in the face of personal horror.
