427 Wieners – a film by Talya Galasko

427 Wieners has been unpublished up until today. This short film by Talya Galasko has female empowerment at its core and is aimed at changing the way females are viewed on screen as well as in everyday life. The film is cheeky, daring and a different way of expressing female sexuality. In my interview with Talya we talk 427 Wieners, her inspiration and background.

Galasko grew up in Johannesburg and completed her Honours in Politics at UCT. After this she did a course in Journalism at NYU. She however had dreams to work in film and taught herself how to edit on Premiere Pro by watching hours of YouTube tutorials. She has previously worked on films during her time as a copywriter at Superbalist — “the one you might recall is the Make Love Valentine’s Day campaign. The one you might not recall is the slide show of hummus I shared on my Instagram the other day.”

427 Wieners is aimed at subverting the picture created of female characters in films as objects of male desire. In contradiction with this picture that we are so often confronted with in cinema, Galasko’s lead is infused with her own inclinations and power. Galasko explains that the casting of her lead character, played by Rachel Kay, was motivated by her desire to cast the blonde bomb shell that is often portrayed in films and the object of male desire. The blonde beauty has however been given a new narrative through the eyes of Tayla Galasko.

Galasko’s short film is narrated by Tiana de Siebenthal, a first-time voice over artist with a specific flair for orgasmic breathing. Siebenthal has a French accent that Talya used in order to heighten the mood of the film and push the satirical tone of her narrative. 427 Wieners makes use of colours like pink and yellow as backdrops that was put together by Art Director, Amber Rose Pretorius and Fashion Director, Gavin Mikey Collinns. Galasko and her team wanted to make use of colours that are habitually viewed as “feminine” as a backdrop for the new narrative they created. The styling and makeup of the film were also inspired by 1950s films, a time during which females were depicted as subjugated; a role that Galasko directly wanted to subvert.

The concept for 427 Wieners came to Galasko on an evening out with her girlfriends while she watched them wolf down a number of hotdogs at the P&G. “It’s not poetic, but it’s the truth. I, like many other women, had become increasingly frustrated with the idea of women existing always in relation to men – not only in films but in real life too. If you know about the Bechdel test – which asks whether a work of fiction features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man – you’ll know that more than half of all films fail to meet these requirements. There is an incredible movement of female artists who are attempting to counteract this, and I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to write a role for a woman with her own sense of agency, her own desires, entitlement and power.”

Galasko states that she made use of both satire and subtlety in her film as she finds them to be compelling tools for sharing ideas. “While the issues being touched on in the film are serious, had we opted for a serious and possibly even angry/moody tone, the film would be less accessible. For me, the nonchalance and tongue-in-cheek character of the film make it that much more empowering.”

With this film Galasko’s intends to give her female audience a sense of empowerment that they can identify with. There was no intention to disempower men by doing so, but to neutralize the idea of male entitlement that subjugates women. Galasko hopes that her film will leave her female audience in a space where they can identify with her lead character as well as feel empowered.

Reflecting on her process for film making Galasko tells me that she likes to establish a concept and storyboard it. She writes her scripts and ideas down in a document on her computer or scraps of paper and old receipts she finds lying around. “Eventually your mind starts to think of film pretty often, like for example the other night I woke up from an excellent dream I was having and thought it was going to be my first full-length feature. Unfortunately when I woke up I realized that it was just the plot of Harry Potter.”

Galasko had no budget for crew for this film, and had to speak to people that she knew and had a working relationship with in order to secure her crew. “I was really lucky because every single one of them is incredibly talented, which made the film what it is. My Director of Photography, Nick Gordon whom I had worked with before was immediately sold on the idea and ensured that we ran with it. From hustling for lighting and set, to being a constant support. I am grateful to have gotten to work alongside him.”