Local’s quirky story set for film fest

A locally produced film with a quirky story is set to be shown to thousands at a Perth film festival.

Doug The Human has been selected as one of eight short films to be screened as part of the Revelation Film Festival’s Get Your Shorts On in Perth today.

Written and directed by Garry Hamaguchi and produced by Jodie Bell, the film tells the eccentric story of a human who was abducted by an alien to be kept as a pet.

Hamaguchi said the idea came about when he thought about how people kept pets for the animal’s life, when it was only a few years for a human in comparison.

“As soon as they die, you get a new one, and as much as we say we love our pets, do we really love them?” he said.

“Sometimes we might get lazy and we might, for example, not take the dog for a walk every day.

“It might not affect us too much, but we don’t know how it might affect them.

“Their whole life is dependent on them, so I thought it would be funny to sort of flip the script.”

Hamaguchi said it was a weird feeling knowing his film would be shown in Perth at the Revelation Film Festival.

“It’s still very surreal even in other film festivals because growing up I would have never thought a movie that I made would be on the big screen,” he said. “It doesn’t get easier because you’re nervous about whether or not people will like it or get the jokes.”

Bell said it was pretty funny to see Doug the Human shown with a film starring Twilight hunk Robert Pattinson in Sydney.

“Because we’ve seen our movie that many times, we sometimes become unsure if the jokes we put in there are still funny, but when we see people laughing, it certainly reassures us,” she said.

“Hopefully after Revelation we can organise a screening up here in Broome to sort of give back to the town.”