A typical family home in Dingley Village was the scene for an extraordinary fire safety short film last Wednesday (25 July 2018), which has been in development for the past three months with a local multicultural group in Springvale.
The Women’s Cultural Friendship Group put up their hands to be the first to make a home fire safety film after CFA delivered a presentation to the Springvale Neighbourhood House earlier in the year about the film project.
The film project, called “We speak your language” aims to engage multicultural groups around the Springvale area to come up with a fire safety topic that could inspire a film. The group came up with a theme of someone being distracted and leaving cooking unattended, as they felt it was a common occurrence in their homes.
They were really concerned about fires starting in the kitchen and what to do if they could not put it out. They also wanted to understand more about smoke alarms and what they are for.
The majority of the Cultural Friendship Group speaks Thai, with the remainder of the members speaking Vietnamese, Khmer and Lao. So the group decided to make the film in Thai. The Thai community is a growing community in Victoria and across Australia.
The fire safety film needed some action by the local brigade to support the story line. Springvale brigade career firefighters alongside Springvale brigade volunteers donned breathing equipment to enter the house to put out the ‘fire’ and calm down the resident.
The crew of six with two fire trucks were incredibly adaptable at the request of the film director and did not get flustered with several takes of the same scene. True to form, CFA firefighters stuck it out until the job was done properly.
The film will be a good demonstration and example to other multicultural groups of what is possible and what can be done in the name of fire safety. The main actress in the film is from the community group and not a professional actor, so she did a marvelous job sticking to her eccentric character and playing the role.
Although the film will have English subtitles, it will be targeting the Thai community uniquely by using culturally relevant and meaningful props and story lines. The short film of about 90 seconds will also be used to send out via Facebook and other social media.
The film will hopefully be launched in October and will be put on the CFA TV on YouTube.
A huge thank you to the Springvale firefighters who took part and have made this film possible, and thanks in advance for the next time we call upon you.
If you have a local multicultural group you want to work with to develop a film based on a local fire safety concern, you can contact angela.cook@cfa.vic.gov.au