You may have noticed something strange in the city lately - a gate that keeps mysteriously appearing in Glebe Park, only to disappear the next day.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
The gate, festooned with padlocks, is a prop for a film shoot, and has to be taken down at the end of each shooting day.
The feature-length film, produced by ScreenACT and called Locks of Love, is an anthology of 10 short stories linked by the theme of love, and all feature a padlock somewhere in the story.
Director of ScreenACT Monica Penders came up with the idea while on a trip to Florence in 2011, where she watched people attaching padlocks to ordinary chain-link fences along the Arno River.
It's a tradition dating back to World War II, when soldiers bound for war inscribed their names on a padlock, attached it to the Ponte Vecchio and, with typical Italian drama, threw the keys into the river, forever binding them to return to Florence.
Nowadays, ''locks of love'' have become a phenomenon in cities all over the world.
The thousands of padlocks look dull and utilitarian at first glance, but on closer inspection are often engraved with names and dates, transforming fences and bridges into works of public art.
It was during her visit that Ms Penders learned that two of her closest friends in Canberra, Helen and Peter Brajkovic, had died in a motorcycle accident back in Canberra. Helen Brajkovic had been a huge supporter of local film.
As she was unable to return home in time for the funeral, Ms Penders made a special trip back to Florence and placed her own lock of love on the balustrade on the Arno, and sat watching others adding their own locks, or browsing the inscriptions.
''Some were happy and laughing, some were sad, and I wondered, what were their stories?'' she said.
She was particularly taken by the sight of one man who arrived carrying bolt cutters, and proceeded to saw off one of the locks in an apparent rage, before realising that he had taken off the wrong one.
''Then he stomped off down the street with his bolt cutters dragging behind him and sparking off the cobblestones,'' Ms Penders said.
''Despite the immense sadness of losing my friends, I started laughing and wondered what the stories are behind these locks, and what would Canberra stories look like.''
The idea for a feature anthology film exploring this idea came soon after, and is now deep in production, with an expected release date in 2014. ''It's a huge undertaking - this is a feature film made by 10 teams,'' Ms Penders said.
Lorraine Bayly, famous for her roles in The Sullivans and The Man from Snowy River, is in town this week shooting her segment, To My One and Only.
Ms Penders confirmed that four of the segments had been completed, with the remaining six scheduled for production over the next six weeks.
