The last time I caught up with Angela Pippos, her son Francis was six months old and we spent most of the time swooning proudly at our boys while comparing notes about broken sleep, breast-feeding, purees and balancing toddlers with work. Caught up in the new mother zone, we barely touched on what her partner, Simon J Dutton, was working on in their living room/studio down the hall.

When we meet again a year later, sans sons, the conversation is firmly focused on Pippos’ other baby, the independent feature film she co-produced with the English-born aspiring filmmaker she met five years ago in a furniture store.

Sitting at a café across from Elsternwick’s Classic Cinema, where The Day of the Broken premiered on March 13, Pippos is excited and exhausted by the feat the couple have pulled off – professionally and personally.

“It’s like we’ve had two babies we were nurturing, and the real baby has been a lot easier than the film baby,” says Pippos, who has added film publicist to the roles she is currently juggling. “Francis isn’t the one keeping us awake at night,” she adds with a laugh.

Pippos’ unexpected journey into filmmaking began two years ago after Dutton left his script on their kitchen table for her to read. In her typical can-do style, Pippos proposed they make it themselves. “I was totally naïve about how hard it would be to produce a film ourselves,” she concedes. “But I said ‘let’s go for it’ and we did.”

Counterpunch Productions was born and she credits “sheer will and determination” for getting the film on to the big screen.

Shot mostly in St Kilda, The Day of the Broken is Dutton’s debut film, a low-budget (“Simon says it cost about as much as 10 frames of The Great Gatsby”), unflinching, graphic crime-thriller starring comedians Greg Fleet, Lawrence Mooney and perennial bad guy Costas Kilias.

“It is a film that will divide audiences,” Pippos warns. “It’s tough and uncompromising. It’s not a popcorn flick, it’s not a multiplex film. It’s an Aussie film noir.”

Pippos says making the film ended up being the easy part. “The hard stuff is selling it and getting the film up.”

“Our film was made outside the system, which is good and bad. It’s good for creative freedom and bad for opening doors.”

Dutton, who directed, edited and ended up taking a lead role in the film, shot a trailer that helped get private investors and the cast on board.

“We had auditions at the local pub. I helped find locations. We were lucky that we had kind friends and contacts that could help us with locations. But really, it was made the old school renegade way,” Pippos explains.

Once the film was finished, they were keen to get it out there quickly. “Rather than wait to secure a distribution deal we went to the Classic. The owner saw it, liked it and said ‘ok, we’ll treat you like any other filmmaker. You are on for a week. If you get bums on seats we keep running it’.”

“You are up against the Hollywood blockbusters, so it’s difficult. But it’s really important for people to support independent Australian cinema.”

(The film went into its second week this week and they are hoping for a limited national release. They are also targeting the film festival circuit.)

“We’ve learnt a lot, though I think for the next film we might try to do things a bit more conventionally,” Pippos adds.

And then, there was what she refers to as “the Francis factor”.

Pippos was heavily pregnant during the shoot and gave birth during the editing process last January.

“You can’t control the timing of these things and as a woman in my 40s I felt truly blessed and so happy to be pregnant,” she says.

“Luckily I had a good pregnancy so I was able to walk to work on the film right until the end. It’s not always easy when you have to find a toilet on location and towards the end I was ducking home for a nap. But I felt the love from the cast and crew, they were looking out for me along the way.”

Did she and Dutton ever argue about the film? “All the time,” Pippos admits. “It’s actually quite remarkable that we are still together. It’s unnatural to work that closely with your partner. We locked horns a few times but at the end of the day it’s his script, it’s his film, but that didn’t stop me offering my opinion along the way.”

Pippos certainly isn’t known for holding back, particularly on the lack of female presenters in the male-dominated world of sports broadcasting.

The Adelaide-born journalist and sports tragic worked in ABC news and current affairs before moving to Melbourne in 1997 to pursue a groundbreaking career in sports journalism. In 2004, she was controversially dropped from the ABC’s nightly news line-up and replaced with a networked spot from Sydney’s Peter Wilkins, causing a major outcry from Melbourne viewers, including some high-profile fans.

After leaving the ABC in 2007, Pippos did a stint in breakfast sports radio – the first woman to co-host Sport 927’s breakfast program – and has since appeared on various television and radio sports shows.

Her 2006 book, The Goddess Advantage – One Year in the Life of a Football Worshipper, about family and footy, chronicles a season following her beloved Adelaide Football Club (she is now an ambassador for the club) and she is working on a second work of fiction.

Pippos says the film provided a healthy break from sport. “It’s been a good thing for me to be away from sport. As a woman working in sport it can wear you down a bit. I had some ideas for a new sports show and that didn’t get off the ground, so it gave me the time to do this. I now feel reinvigorated and ready to go back into it.”

Pippos is writing sport for online news site The New Daily and is also regular on the MC circuit.
With the film finally out, she is also looking forward to more time to focus on Francis. “Francis has been to so many meetings with me he’s now being introduced as the CEO of Counterpunch Productions.”

The Day of the Broken is screening at the Classic Cinema in Elsternwick. More information at www.counterpunchproductions.net