Writer/director Anthony Hayes is talking about communication difficulties between fathers and sons when his mobile phone rings.
"It's my dad," Mr Hayes exclaims, surprised.
"I've just hung up on him - sorry dad."
The irony doesn't escape his co-writer and actor Brendan Cowell.
"That's very symbolic, isn't it?" Mr Cowell smiles.
The two men are in deep discussion about the film they wrote together - Ten Empty - which Mr Hayes directed and in which Mr Cowell acted.
It is the first feature film the pair have made through their company Roguestar Productions, which they formed in 1999. Mr Hayes said they found common ground bemoaning the lack of Australian films they could relate to and that they felt accurately represented life in the suburbs.
"I guess [Australian films] were becoming more and more Hollywood to appeal to an international market, or we were doing suburban comedies after The Castle that parodied working class and poked fun at them, and drew them as these kind of cardboard cut-out morons," Mr Hayes says.
"We were both from the suburbs.why can't we do a story about working-class Australia, which is the backbone of Australia, and treat that subject with respect?
Mr Hayes says the script for Ten Empty was inspired by another subject dear to their hearts - the relationships between fathers and sons.
"Really, the idea was about male communication and how there was that generational gap between what males are now - more city-dwelling metrosexuals who are pretty free with our feelings and emotions - and the staunch older generation that exists," he says.
Ten Empty tells the story of Elliot Christie (Daniel Frederiksen), a boy from the suburbs who ran away to the city after the painful death of his mentally ill mother.
A decade later he returns home, where his father Ross (Geoff Morrell) has married his mother's sister Diane (Lucy Bell), his younger brother Brett (Tom Budge) is a silent, medicated recluse and his new half-brother is about to be christened.
Over the course of the weekend, emotions run high as the family secrets are exposed, old wounds opened and difficult questions shatter the fragile veneer.
Mr Cowell, who grew up in the south Sydney suburb of Cronulla, says he wanted to explore the pain, the tension and the confusion experienced by many of the boys he knew in his teens.
"A father needs to pass down to his son the licence to express himself or to say it's OK to not know who you are or to not know how to talk to a woman or to not know who you want to be, and things like that.
"That isn't being said or passed down a lot, and when it's not, sometimes the kid will take their own life or turn into someone very bitter and very angry, and very dangerous.
"Those things can manifest into tragedy if they're not looked at."
Mr Cowell appears in the film as likable larrikin Shane Hackett, who is often seen hanging out at the pub with the rugby league-loving family friend Bobby Thompson, played by Australian cinema stalwart Jack Thompson.
Mr Cowell says they were flattered Mr Thompson liked their script so much he wanted to be a part of the film for a fraction of his usual fee.
Mr Hayes adds: "Jack's a big ambassador for Australia, for Australian films - he's one of the few actors that has that Hollywood career that do actually come back and do these Australian stories."
For their part, Mr Cowell and Mr Hayes say they are keen to keep telling Australian stories rather than be lured by the bright lights of Hollywood.
And they think the local industry would be much better served if film-makers stopped trying to produce Hollywood-style movies.
"We've slowly become more and more American in a way; we're kind of making more Aussiewood films," Mr Hayes says. "I think in the last 10 to 15 years, our eye has been firmly planted on the box office as a measure of success rather than ... how good the film is.
"We need to come up with some other measure for that." Mr Hayes and Mr Cowell say Ten Empty is not trying to compete with big budget blockbusters, but aims to give people a "drama with heart".
"For us, the idea of success would be if it permeated the city and then drifted out into the suburbs and we felt like it was seen by the people we were talking about," Mr Cowell says.
"That would really touch our hearts, if it got outside the trendy city circle. "I reckon that would be an idea of success."
Ten Empty was released on July 3.