Love Opera provides an inside look at Brisbane’s world-class Lisa Gasteen National Opera Program as it prepares a production of Carmen with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra.

Nestled inside Griffith University on Brisbane’s South Bank, the Lisa Gasteen National Opera Program is the brainchild of its eponymous leader, whose singular qualities as an opera singer have taken her from The Met to Covent Garden and all across Europe.

This warm-hearted documentary follows Lisa as she looks to cultivate the next generation of opera stars and deliver a top-flight production over the course of an intensive program. The students dig deep to give the performance of their lives for the famous opera Carmen, as they prepare to share the stage with international talent on opening night.

The documentary includes extensive interviews with Lisa Gasteen AO, renowned Australian soprano and Director of the Lisa Gasteen National Opera Program, Alondra de la Parra, who is an internationally acclaimed conductor and recently Musical Director of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Simone Young, leading International conductor from Australia and Italian conductor Giovanni Reggioli, who works with the Washington National Opera, USA.

CAST

Lisa Gasteen AO
Nancy Underhill
Simone Young
Giovanni Reggioli
Alondra de la Parra
Thiago arancam
Vesselina kasarova
Morgan England-Jones
Rachel Pines
pauLL-Anthony KEIGHTLEY
SAMUEL PIPER
OLIVER BOYD
BLAKE PARHAM
ADRIAN TImPAU

Meet THE TEAM 

 DIRECTOR: Liselle Mei 

Liselle graduated from New York University’s film program. Her final film, Ana: Portrait in Days won the 1st place Wasserman Award at NYU’s First Run Film Festival, the Empire State Award for Best Experimental Short and a Student Academy Award nomination.  

Liselle was awarded the Women in Film Award for her series, Lower East Side Stories- screening at New York’s prestigious MOMA and on PBS’s Real NY series WNET/Thirteen. Liselle’s other awards include the Jerome Foundation’s Media Arts Award, a NYFA fellowship in Screenwriting and Urban Artist Initiative award. She was selected for the Berlin Talent Campus, Tribeca All Access, IFP’s No Borders, Pusan’s PPP program and served on the film advisory committee for the New York Foundation of the Arts. 

Now Sydney based, Liselle has directed the short films, A Light Touch and Skin (through Screen Australia) and feature documentary, Love Opera. Her writing credits include Seeing Red (winner of the Grand Jury screenplay award at the Asia Pacific Film Festival) and Red Earth- a cross cultural love story set on Queensland’s sugar cane fields.  

She is currently developing two VR projects, The Little Flower (a virtual animation fable) and documentary series, First Artists.

PRODUCER: Trish Lake 

Trish Lake, a former ABC TV journalist, is the CEO of Brisbane-based, Australian production company, Freshwater Pictures.

Trish is a past president of Screen Producers Australia – SPA and a recipient of SPA’s Feature Film Producer of the Year award. 

Among her recent producing credits are the feature documentary, The Eulogy, nominated for Best Documentary in the AACTA, SPA and FCCA Awards and the winner of the prestigious Williams Documentary Fellowship; Frackman, named by The Guardian newspaper as one of the top ten films in Australia in 2015 and Wik Versus Queensland which won Best Documentary, History, at the ATOM Awards, and Best Documentary at the First Nations Media Awards. 

Her narrative feature film credits include the Canadian-Australian co-production, Early Winter, which won Venice Film Festival’s Venice Days Award, and the Australian comedies, Gettin’ Square and Subdivision.

Her documentaries credits include The Burning Season, Show Me the Magic, My America and Rare Chicken Rescue. 

She is also Artistic Director of Tasmania’s Breath of Fresh Air Film Festival - BOFA - and an Adjunct Fellow at Griffith University, Brisbane where she leads a mentor program for emerging producers at Griffith Film School.

PRODUCER: Daniel Schultz

Daniel Schultz, whose most recent film as producer, is the feature documentary, Love Opera, has extensive credits for producing and as a production accountant.

He is also the Head of Finance and Strategy at Ludo Studio and consults as a producer and production accountant for Freshwater Pictures, and The Planet Spins. 

He is currently producing Joshua Long’s new short film for the horror series, Deadhouse Dark. He also produced the short horror film, Post Mortem Mary, with funding from Screen Queensland that premiered at ScreamFest LA in October 2017.

In 2018 Daniel was the recipient of Screen Australia Enterprise People funding to be the fulltime Business Affairs Manager for Ludo Studio in Brisbane. 

Daniel’s industry credits include Secrets of Vanuatu Water Music as Producer, The Eulogy, as Co-Producer, Robbie Hood and Content as Associate Producer, and Bluey, The Second, Wik Versus Queensland, Jill Bilcock: Dancing the Invisible, Early Winter and Rise of the Eco-Warriors as Production Accountant.

Daniel has worked as a Sessional Academic at Griffith Film School teaching Screen Distribution and Film Finance. He has also provided consultant services to Brisbane based-production companies, Like A Photon Creative, Virgo Productions, Wild Fury, VisionQuest, Faraway Films and Gulliver Media.

Director of Photography (DOP) / Cinematographer: Esteban Rivera

Australian-based director of photography, originally from Cali, Colombia.

From 2007 Esteban began working in the lighting department on numerous independent feature films. While expanding upon his lighting knowledge, he discovered a passion for being behind the camera; this devotion became a turning point and ushered his transition to becoming a cinematographer.

He has worked on a number of Australian Documentaries and TV shows including The Blue Water Empire, Mako Mermaids and We Were Tomorrow, as well as international films such as Aquaman, High Rollers (China), Yan’an (South Korea), Aiyai (India).

With over six years of experience, Esteban is now a freelance director of photography and camera operator. He has received a number of awards and nominations for his work, including an ACS Silver Award in the music video category.