Art Smitten - The Podcast

Super low-budget and full of charm, the Melbourne-made film Pawno, released in 2015 at the Melbourne International Film Festival to sell-out crowds, is the first feature from director John Ireland and scriptwriter Damian Hill, who also stars in the film. Pawno takes place over one whole day, and is largely centred around a Footscray pawn shop, referenced in the title. The shop is inhabited by Les, the kind-hearted grouch of an owner (played by John Brumpton) and his youthful dogsbody assistant Danny (played by Hill). As well as these two characters, the film is populated by an assortment of locals who add an offbeat vibrancy to the day's proceedings. There's two women who work in a bookstore, one of whom Danny has a crush on, there's a pair of smart-arse layabouts, there's a violent thug, there's a woman whose son is missing, there’s a trans woman whose visits to the shop are a form of solace from the harsh outside world, there's an Indian taxi driver who was a dentist in his home country... t