Richard Vilensky has been making films in Perth for about 30 years, most of them 30 seconds long. This week, Screenwest and Screen Australia named his debut feature Everyone’s Having a Good Time But You the West Coast Visions 2026 recipient, putting up to $1.5 million behind it.
The film is a dark comedy about the owner of a failing furniture business who, on the eve of his daughter’s wedding, resorts to steadily more desperate measures to keep his family in the dark, himself out of jail, and the big day on track. Screenwest bills it as Fargo meets Father of the Bride, built around an insurance scam that goes badly wrong.
The film draws on Vilensky’s own life in Perth’s Jewish community. Screenwest is framing it as a contemporary Jewish-Australian family drama told through dark comedy and surreal farce, a story world it says is rarely seen in Australian screen culture.
“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,” Vilensky said. “If for no other reason than my mother needs something to boast about.”
Vilensky has spent his career directing commercials through Sandbox and The Penguin Empire, winning Perth Advertising and Design Club awards for campaigns including St John’s Life Goes On, which took Best of Show in 2018.
“As soon as we read Richard’s hilarious script, we all knew this was the film we wanted to make,” the film’s producers, McNeil, Limpus, and Habib said. “Having watched Richard develop as a director through his work with Sandbox over the past decade, we’re thrilled to help bring his unique voice and bold cinematic vision to a global audience.”
Running since 2005, West Coast Visions backs one WA director’s first theatrical feature. Screenwest delivers it with up to $1 million from the State Government and Lotterywest, and Screen Australia pre-commits a further $500,000 in equity. Past recipients include Sweet As, How to Please a Woman, Last Train to Freo, and Birthright.
“West Coast Visions has become one of the country’s premier pathways for emerging filmmakers, helping Western Australians transform bold creative ideas into feature films with national and international reach,” Creative Industries Minister Simone McGurk said.
Production on Everyone’s Having a Good Time But You is scheduled to start in Western Australia in mid-2027.
