Greek Australian director Sotiris Dounoukos is picking up a lot of interest over his short film, A Single Body.

After the success of the short film to local audiences at the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), he is travelling to Canada to feature the film at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival.

The Greek, Australian and French produced film follows two slaughterhouse workers whose dream of starting their own business is threatened by a new worker.

The project was actually spawned by Mr Dounoukos’ chance encounter with a slaughterhouse worker on a Melbourne tram.

“It began with a conversation with two abattoir workers on my tram in Melbourne,” he tells Neos Kosmos.

“My father was involved in that industry when he first came to Australia, so there was already a pre-existing interest and knowledge of their work.”

The story was written years ago, but struggling to find local abattoirs that would allow him to film, Mr Dounoukos had to look overseas to give the story a location. Settling on France, Mr Dounoukos made it a truly international affair, bringing in an Australian, Greek and French team to complete the short and shooting it in French. Having such a diverse cast and crew, it was hard for MIFF to find it a fitting category, tossing up between calling it a local or an international short.

Amazingly, the cinematographer for A Single Body was the son of the great Giorgios Arvanitis, who shot many of the Finos films such as H Arhondissa kai o alitis and also worked on a lot of Angelopoulos’ highly regarded films.

The story was one that transcended borders, which is why it worked so well with such an international setting.

“Ultimately it became a story about friendship and the connections between people and making new beginnings in a new city,” Mr Dounoukos says.

The film will be featured in the Toronto Film Festival’s first ever Short Cuts International Program, giving deserved promotion to the art of short filmmaking.

For Mr Dounoukos, he sees shorts as a completely different beast than feature films.

“Shorts are like a poem and features are like writing a novel, every filmmaker wants to make their feature,” he says.

He’ll be given that opportunity next year, when he starts production on Joe Cinque’s Consolation, based on the true story of a shocking murder in 1997.