Bo's Diary
a lonely teenage boy finds a lost diary and falls for the girl he imagines wrote it, until her real self gets in the way…
Synopsis
Cooper’s life consists mostly inside his bedroom, or inside his head. Until he discovers a lost artifact: the diary of a girl named Bo.
In his imaginary world (and on-screen), they fall in love. In his mind, he isn’t just reading her diary, he’s having real conversations with her. Sometimes they’re together in his world of leafy streets and his messy bedroom, making it a little less lonely. Other times they’re in her bombastic, kitsch, pastel-coloured world, where everything feels exciting. But try as he might, Cooper can't stop the fantasy from cracking. Bo starts to withdraw, seemingly resenting the way he looks at her. Their relationship is getting complicated, and Bo calls Cooper’s real-life behaviour into question.
In the final scene of the film, Cooper catches a glimpse of the real-life Bo in the street with her friends. But she isn’t the Bo he knows. She looks different, dresses different, acts different. She’s shy and regular, like him. Seeing the real girl, Cooper realises his fantasies are selfish and he needs to stop isolating himself from the real world.
So, he returns the diary to the stranger and lets go of his wild dreams of someone who never existed.
Director's Statement
This film is at its core about how women are often seen in media and by their romantic partners as ideas instead of people. It’s a personal story derived from my feelings of frustration about how patriarchal dynamics subconsciously and subtly permeate male/female relationships. I chose to express this particular idea as a coming of age that relishes in the charming immaturity of the teenage experience, because I think these gendered dynamics are heightened in adolescence, when love feels like a prize to win over insecurity, and we often selfishly desire someone to make us feel special.
It's confronting to see yourself through the eyes of another person, especially in the context of a teenage relationship where neither person's sense of self is yet robust. I first conceived of this project when I was around the same age of the characters, and wrote Bo as a means to playfully express the dissociative feeling of being a young woman, feeling swallowed up by the desire projected upon you by a man who doesn't really know you at all. The film plays into magic realism territory at times, as Cooper’s fantasy of Bo moves between his imagination and the real world, blurring these lines in the same way that lines are blurred between real girls and what we dream them to be.
Teaser
Key Stills
Visual Style
Bo’s Diary’s dreamy, kitsch, nostalgic aesthetics of girlishness and teenage brooding takes major notes from the work of Petra Collins, and of course, Sofia Coppola. The heavily stylised production design, which was a crucial element which informed pretty much everything else, was inspired by coming of age films and the classic John Hughes teen romances of the 1980s, particularly in the way that they style teen’s bedrooms as a hive of their personality and interests. However, my biggest and most consistent touchstone, from the way Bo’s Diary was composed, set dressed, and edited, was Richard Ayoade’s Submarine (2010), which holds a unique place as the film that most influenced my teenage imagination.
Isabel James
Isabel James is a writer, director, and recent Media Arts and Production and Writing and Publishing graduate from the University of Technology Sydney. Isabel takes great joy in creating small stories about eccentric characters, and on-screen worlds with exaggerated and distinct aesthetic personalities. Isabel's dedicated passion for cinematography and camera operation has influenced her visual-focused, detail-oriented directing style, while her years of creative writing and theatre experience have only made her fonder of screenwriting and the craft of performance. She loves sentimental coming-of-age movies and experimental horror (and loves that this is an amusingly bizarre combination of interests). Isabel is the former Managing Editor and Creative Writing Editor for UTS Vertigo Magazine, and now works at a major book publisher in Sydney. This is her first narrative short film, and she is excited to see where future projects take her.
Writer & Director
Geraint Evans
Cooper
Geraint Huw Evans was born in Cardiff, Wales, in 2006. He moved with his parents and brother to Australia when he was eighteen months old. Geraint undertook his first drama lesson at the age of six and has been passionate about acting ever since. For the past nine years, Geraint has undertaken Trinity College London Speech and Drama examinations. In 2024, he was awarded an Associate Performance Diploma, which he passed with distinction at just seventeen years old. Geraint has participated in numerous theatre productions, short films, and television commercials. He has performed extensively in Eisteddfods, winning numerous awards. Geraint’s long-term ambition is to pursue a career in acting and his dream is to be nominated for an Oscar.
Brook Taylor Moore
Bo
Originally from Adelaide, Brook is a 21-year-old actress studying at Actor's Centre Australia. Brook fell in love with the craft of acting from her experiences performing in school productions growing up. Now in her second year of drama school, Brook has dedicated herself to developing her skills in both stage and screen. Brook particularly enjoys movement-based performance and classical theatre, and is currently rehearsing for the role of Lady Macbeth in an upcoming production of Macbeth.
Anna Chierchia
Producer
Anna Chierchia is a screenwriter, director, and producer currently studying at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). As a growing writer and industry professional, she has had the privilege of co-writing three short films and made her directorial debut in 2023. Additionally, she has produced 2 short films so far. With a lifelong passion for the creative and performing arts, she is deeply interested in storytelling, especially character-driven stories that explore the complexities of people's lives. Her years of acting experience have only strengthened her love for storytelling, which she hopes to share with the world.
Kevin Khang
Director of Photography
Kevin (Khang) Nguyen is a Vietnamese-Australian cinematographer often travelling between Sydney & Brisbane, Australia. Since making the bold decision of moving from dentistry to cinematography, Kevin has shot a plethora of short-form projects and has recently made the plunge to shooting long-form narrative and documentaries. After graduating from the Masters of Cinematography program at AFTRS, Kevin has won multiple Australian Cinematography Society State Awards including the prestigious Gold for short film and documentary which have garnered national recognition. Kevin’s collaborative approach allows him to adapt towards any genre or style. With a sharp eye for lighting and moving the audience through evocative imagery, Kevin values telling stories from under-represented communities.
Durr-e-Adan Haque
Durr-e-'Adan Haque (a.k.a. Deah) is a film editor, sound designer, and writer. They studied Media Arts Production at UTS. As editor, Deah had a lot of fun shaping the fantasy narrative and showcasing their love of music video-style montage and genre-appropriate coming-of-age film awkwardness. Deah's other work includes sound design on the multimedia art installation Heritage (Rosie Jones, 2024), poetry, podcast production, and film criticism focused on LGBT cinema.
Editor
Linus Ferris
Linus Ferris is a sound designer from the inner west of Sydney, Australia. With a generalist background ranging from previous tenures in animation and television, Linus discovered his true passion for sound design in his second year of University, designing to the soundtrack of Bladerunner 2049. He's now a few years into his professional career and has worked in all aspects of post-production audio, from film and TV to advertising, and has taken skill sets from all parts to become to mixer he is today. He's very keen to see how Bo's Diary turns out and how well it travels in the festival circuit.
Sound Designer
Daisy Buttress
Production Designer
Abbey Barnes is a Production Designer and Cinematographer from Western Sydney, Australia. Abbey’s experience in film and production began as a child studying textiles and the performing arts. This eventually led her to a Bachelor of Communication (Media Arts & Production) at UTS to follow her passion for filmmaking. Over the course of this degree, her interests became fixated on the processes involved in physically creating the sets, props and costumes required for each project and she began taking on more roles as a production designer, set dresser and prop builder. One of her main objectives as a production designer is to collaborate with other passionate and experimental filmmakers to invent worlds that have never existed. Abbey also believes in amplifying marginalised voices through filmmaking. She has worked closely with others in recent projects to centre disabled stories and voices both on screen and on set to reinforce the importance of not only a safe and accessible workplace, but one that is gratifying and supportive for all.
Abbey Barnes
Production Designer
Crew
Director & Screenwriter: Isabel James
Producer: Anna Chierchia
Director of Photography: Kevin Khang
Editor: Durr-e-'Adan Haque
Sound Designer: Linus Ferris
Production Design: Abbey Barnes, Daisy Buttress
Camera Operator: Kevin Khang
1st Assistant Camera: Nova Khang, Alex Shingles
2nd Assistant Camera: Brodie Miller, Victor Xi
Gaffer: Hanqi Zhang
Best Boy: Zhouhan Li, Leonhard Frankester
Sound recordist: Minoli De Silva
Boom Operator: Andy Wang
Composer: Ana Beyron
Colourist: Kevin Khang
Cast
Cooper: Geraint Evans
Bo: Brook Taylor Moore
Mum (voice): Milvia Harder
Eli: Jack Treacy
Extras: Abbey Barnes, Daisy Buttress, Anna Chierchia, Nida Haque, Maya Heinecke, Eleni Papahatziz-Dagias
Credits & Specs
Runtime: 8 minutes 55 seconds
Format: MOV file