Love and Other Catastrophes is a little gem of an independent rom-com, following a day in the life of five Melbourne University students looking for love, academic success and the elusive ideal sharehouse. Film students Mia (Frances O’Connor) and Alice (Alice Garner) have just moved into a new place and are trying to find a third housemate— a role Mia's girlfriend Danni (Radha Mitchell) thinks she would be perfect for, until Mia's commitment issues and preoccupation with securing the most career-advantageous lecturer cause a rift between them. Meanwhile Alice avoids work on her long-postponed thesis by embroiling herself in a love triangle between worldly classical-languages major Ari (Matthew Dyktynski) and shy medical student Michael (Matt Day), as she and Mia plan a raucous party with the aim of luring in a new housemate to their apartment.

Director & co-writer Emma-Kate Croghan was 23 years old and just out of uni herself when she embarked on this charming debut feature, shot on location with a microbudget over 17 days. Croghan's close connection to the milieu she's exploring—one of procrastination, angst and bongs for breakfast—gives the film an easy lived-in quality, with a wry sense of humour about the inherent self-seriousness of arts students. In his review Roger Ebert complained of the characters being “terminally cool about their sexuality” (according to him Croghan should have written a lesbian character more like Kevin Smith did in Chasing Amy), but it's precisely this easy, breezy it's-the-90s approach to sex and looming adulthood that makes Love and Other Catastrophes such a refreshing experience.