Screenwest AND Screen Australia announce West Coast Visions recipient

Screenwest and Screen Australia today announced Richard Vilensky’s scripted feature Everyone’s Having a Good Time But You as the coveted West Coast Visions 2026 recipient.

One of the country’s most significant filmmaking initiatives for emerging filmmakers, West Coast Visions is designed to uncover, inspire and develop talented Western Australian filmmakers with distinctive voices, providing them with up to $1 million production funding supported by the Western Australian Government and Lotterywest.

With Screen Australia’s pre-commitment of $500,000 in equity, West Coast Visions recipients will receive a total of up to $1.5 million in production funding for their project.

WA writer and director Richard Vilensky brings his noir-inflected, tragicomic and performance driven work to his dark comedy debut feature, where Fargo meets Father of the Bride in an insurance scam that goes horribly wrong.

The film is produced by Shane McNeil, Matty Limpus, Grady Habib (Sandbox Productions) and Ari Harrison (Sanctuary Pictures).

Julie Ryan (Late Night with The Devil, Hotel Mumbai, Red Dog) is attached as Executive Producer alongside Jamie Bialkower (Jump Street Films) bringing the support of the Jewish Australian Screen Fund.

Set on the eve of his daughter’s wedding, the owner of a failing furniture chain is forced into extreme action as he attempts to keep his family in the dark, himself out of jail and the big day on the rails.

Everyone’s Having a Good Time But You draws on Vilensky’s experiences of connection, community and humour as a member of Perth’s Jewish community, representing a story world and perspective rarely seen in Australian screen culture – a contemporary Jewish-Australian family drama through the lens of dark comedy and surreal farce.

Supported by the Western Australian Government and Lotterywest, West Coast Visions provides funding to develop talented Western Australian filmmakers with distinctive cinematic voices for a debut feature film for theatrical release.

Writer/Director Richard Vilensky said, “This film is the culmination of a long creative journey – having circled these ideas for years without fully understanding why. It wasn’t until I embraced both the personal themes and the Jewish world I grew up in that the story finally became what it was meant to be – a funny, unsettling and painfully human spiral of chaos. I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who has believed in that vision, and I can’t wait to share it with the world. If for no other reason than my mother needs something to boast about.”