There's a lot of excitement and a lot of hard work when creating a film, especially one which is being considered for an Academy Award, 'Simshar' film Director Rebecca Cremona told The Malta Independent today.

'Simshar', a film based on a Marsaxlokk fishing trip tragedy from which there was only one survivor, Simon Bugeja, was directed by Rebecca Cremona and is being considered for the Foreign-language film category. The tragedy saw Simon lose his son Theo, as well as his father, Karmenu, fishermen Noel Carabott and Somali national Abdulrahman Abdala Gedi.

Director Rebecca Cremona spoke with the Malta Independent. "We are humbled, grateful and really excited for this opportunity. It is a fantastic experience, one that is great for the film industry in Malta, but also is an opportunity to put Malta on the film making international map".

"I met Simon in 2008, just a few months after the accident occurred. They've been through a lot. They have a baby now. We made this film together. I won't lie, it was very intense".

"We will do our best to achieve this award. There are experienced directors taking part and heavyweights in European cinema. We will do our best and see what happens".

Currently, work is being done behind the scenes to handle international distribution. "We are meeting with sales agents and distributers, negotiating offers. So far we have had very diverse offers from countries within the EU as well as the Americas".

"This is the first time a film from Malta is being considered for an Academy Award, along with 82 other submissions yes, but it's very exciting," 'Simshar' Press Attaché Ryan Gatt said. "This isn't just our achievement, but it's an achievement for Malta". The film was mainly funded by the Malta Film Fund.

"Thank God for the team Rebecca put together. The team was mostly Maltese and we worked very well together. It was also my first time working for a Maltese Director". Throughout production, Ryan held a number of titles including assistant supervisor, script supervisor and also producer.

The film was submitted through a collaboration between the Malta Film Commission and the Ministry for Culture, he said.

"A lot of people think that once the filming ends, work stops. This is not the case. Distribution plays a big part".

Considering the film is based on real events, how did this affect the creative process? "There were lives involved," Ryan explains, "especially considering the young boy, Theo, had lost his life".

"Its always a delicate process. We thank God we found cooperation from Simon and Sharon (his parents) who are still, and will always go through, difficult times as a result of that day. I can't come close to imagining what it is like to lose a child. The cooperated with us all throughout and I know it wasn't easy on them".

"The process did affect Rebecca when adapting a real life story to a narrative. She has a lot of respect for the family and the situation was always at the back of her mind. We took decisions keeping them in the back of our mind, we didn't want to hurt them. This did not negatively impact the narrative in any way".

"We did change a few things from the real story of course. Noel, for example, was not included in the film and there was no specific reason for this other than it wasn't important for the narrative. Other details were also left out. Our aim wasn't to analyse or question the real story as that would have been a documentary. What interested Rebecca was the parallels made between the stranded lives of Maltese at sea and those of migrants stranded in the Mediterranean each and every day".

In January, a shortlist of 9 contenders will be revealed a week before the announcement of the 5 Oscar nominations.

Rebecca thanked her team, the Film Commission, both the previous and current government and all other contributors for helping make this film possible, further emphasising this as a national achievement.