“Joe Novella’s World: How an Italian-Australian Writer and Filmmaker Turns Family History, Humour, and Everyday Heroes into Stories That Touch the Heart”
- The Daily Mirror Rppfm 98.7
- Dec 4, 2025
- 5 min read
Updated: Dec 12, 2025
CHAT SESSION 135 with Joe Novella
Topic- “The Creative Life of Joe Novella”
Monday 8th December 2026 1pm https://rppfm.com.au
Joe Novella is a writer and filmmaker who is proud of his southern Italian roots and proud to be an Australian. Amongst his creative works, he wrote a book in the year 2000, Pepe and Poppy, a funny and heartwarming story set in the 1980s about an Italian-Australian boy named Pepe from Avondale Heights, who falls in love with a Greek-Australian girl named Poppy from Coburg, at a time when cross-cultural marriages were not common. The book was hugely popular when it was released, especially amongst first generation Italian and Greeks.
Joe also wrote a spoof on the self-help genre, The Ultimate Self-Help Guide for Men, a tongue-in-cheek book filled with very dubious advice for men which attracted the attention of Universal Pictures who secured the rights to feature it in the American Pie franchise, specifically American Pie 4. “Humour is a big part of me,” Joe said. “A lot of my writing is geared towards making people laugh. When my son, James, was little he thought farts were hilarious as boys do, so I wrote a book for him, Naughty Bart and his Giant Fart which I self-published and was blown away when it spent a few days on Amazon’s best seller list.”
“Even my film making can be very humorous and irreverent,” Joe explained. “I once made a short film about a guy who lived in a block of flats, who was getting into heated disputes with his neighbours because one of them kept putting stuff in his recycling bin. On the day of the shoot, one of the actors didn’t turn up, quite possibly because the part they were supposed to play involved them as a man dressing up as a woman. So, I thought, stuff it, I’ll act it myself.”
More recently Joe wrote and directed a documentary, “Calabrisella Mia” which centred on the life of his father, Agazio and the wider Calabrese diaspora. “My father emigrated to Australia when he was 14 years old,” Joe said. “By himself! A 3-month journey, by himself and he was so young. It’s something that still blows my mind today. I mean can you imagine having lived in a small rural village in the rugged mountain region of Calabria, pretty much isolated from much of the world, and then having to make the journey to the coast to board a massive ship, to a country on the other side of the world, all by himself.”
Calabrisella Mia documents the story of Agazio Novella’s arrival in Australia and the challenges he faced as he strove to build a better life for himself, including verbal racism, discrimination and physical abuse, and how despite all those challenges, Agazio succeeded in finding work that enabled him to provide for his family back in Calabria and build a life for himself.
“One of the interesting things about making the documentary,” Joe said, “was discovering just how proud Dad was to call himself an Aussie. Even after all the challenges he faced as a young migrant arriving in 1960s Melbourne, Australia provided him with opportunities that he would never have had back in his native land, and for that dad is forever grateful to this land, Australia, that he calls home.”
The documentary was shown at the Reggio Calabria Club in Brunswick and at the Museo Italiano as well as locations like Mildura which has a large number of residents of Calabrian heritage. “Calabrisella Mia was no Hollywood production,” Joe said of the documentary, “more a labour of love done on a very limited budget, but I wanted to do it to capture my dad’s story for the coming generations and the film seems to have resonated with a lot of people, something I am very proud of.”
Apart from making films and writing books, Joe has been busy building a nation-wide short story competition for high-school students called Little Stories Big Ideas. “I wanted to get our students using their creativity and imagination, so I started Little Stories Big Ideas in 2021. I think we had about 30 entries for our first comp, but it quickly gained traction and now has close to 500 entries per term.”
But by far Joe’s most important job is being a father to 10-year-old James. “My wife and I left it very late to become parents. I was 48 when James was born and a lot of people are becoming grandparents at that age.” According to Joe, being a parent is the most challenging job he has ever had, especially given he is now 58 years old with a 10-year-old child who is full of beans. “And that’s why I try to keep as fit as I can,” said Joe. “And the Peninsula is a perfect spot to be active, you can walk, swim, and play sport surrounded by some of the most stunning scenery in the world in my humble opinion. We are very lucky to live on the Ninch.”
So, what’s ahead for Joe? “I’m the type of person who likes to keep busy and have lots of projects happening at the one time.” Apart from being a dad and hubbie, Joe is currently working on getting his first book, Pepe and Poppy, into screenplay format with the dream of having it on the big screen one day. He has just launched a corporate videography company Working Visuals as well as a wedding video business, White Tie Visuals. He is also making another doco about the school crossing attendant at his son’s school, Mornington Primary – a legend called Julio.
“Julio is an absolute inspiration to me,” Joe said. “He is 86 years old, born in Uruguay and now a proud Aussie. Julio is at the school crossing every school day, rain, hail or shine with positive words and smiles for all the kids as well as treats for all the dogs. Our school community absolutely loves and adores him, and I wanted to capture his story on film because of the positive impact he has had on our school community. And because people like Julio are the heroes we should be celebrating, the ones who serve our community.”
My hope is that when you’re looking at yourself in the
‘The Daily Mirror’
YOU SMILE
EMBRACE BEING YOU
AND FIND 10 MINUTES IN YOUR DAY TO NOURISH YOUR SOUL!
To get in touch with Cathy email smileinthedailymirror@gmail.com
'The Daily Mirror' acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Custodians of the land and acknowledges and pays respect to their Elders, past and present.
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