Kelly Schilling on working with Marta Dusseldorp and building the emotional truth of With or Without You

The Curb

Kelly Schilling's feature debut film With or Without You is the powerful and impactful story of a mother, Sharon (Marta Dusseldorp) and a daughter, Chloe (Melina Vidler), who are forced to navigate the complicated reality of alcohol addiction, an affliction that Sharon uses to manage her anxiety alongside Valium and men. For Chloe, the man in her life, an ex-boyfriend, turns violent and aggressive, inflicting abuse on her by burning down her caravan, destroying her life savings and home in the process. In a bid to get to some kind of safety and sanctuary, Sharon and Chloe head on the road, meeting Dalu (Albert Mwangi) on the way, a West African man who is looking for work in the Australian countryside.

With or Without You had its world premiere at the 2024 Adelaide Film Festival, the end result of a decades long journey for Kelly Schilling, who has written the script and directed the film from a lived-in perspective. It's that script, which has changed over the years into the text that it is today, that gives Marta, Melina, Albert, and the chorus of characters, the chance to bring light to a truth that exists within Australia, namely, the impact of alcohol addiction and the trauma left from partner abuse.

Yet, lest I paint this film as being a dark, dramatic affair, Kelly knows to imbue these moments of difficulty and darkness with aspects of lightness and laughter. The bond that Sharon and Chloe have with one another feels lived in and real, with Marta and Melina bringing the mother-daughter relationship to life with a charm and level of cheekiness that means the film, at times, feels like a mirror. Schilling's script and direction understands the shades of life and the way that moments of joy can break through hours of pain and darkness, giving way to hope and the possibility of a better life along the way.

In the following interview, Kelly talks about that balance of storytelling on a script level, what it was like working with Marta to build the character of Sharon, and what it means to tell a story from a lower socio-economic perspective, one that is so often written by people who live comfortably outside the societal place of being from a lower socio-economic background.

With or Without You is out in Australian cinemas from 8 May, just in time for Mother's Day. It is a powerful, impressive film about mother-daughter bonds, one that's left a mark on me and that I have thought about long after that initial screening in Adelaide in 2024.

Cinematographer Michael Tessari recently won an Award of Distinction from the Australian Cinematographer's Society.

For those who are interested in the film, I also recommend checking out my interview with Albert Mwangi, which was released earlier in 2025, where he talks about working on With or Without You, as well as his work on another film which screened at Adelaide, Make it Look Real.

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