The Breaker Upperers has already made around $1.7m at the NZ box office, making it one of the 20 biggest Kiwi hits of all-time.

Surrounded by laughter and the clink of glasses, Jackie van Beek and Madeleine Sami are celebrating in a bar. "We just got some soft shell crab," van Beek says on the phone. "And some broccoli,' Sami adds.

Two of the rising stars of New Zealand filmmaking are enjoying themselves in Albany, north of Auckland, for very good reasons.

Their shared birthday is the next day. Even better, their film The Breaker Upperers has opened strongly in New Zealand after warm-hearted reviews at the South by Southwest festival in Texas. And they are about to head to a cinema around the corner for what sounds like a spirited Chicks at the Flicks screening of their film.

Madeline Sami and Jack van Beek are celebrating the success of their first film, The Breaker Upperers.

Next week the comedy opens a Sydney Film Festival that reflects the currents that have started changing filmmaking since the rise of the #MeToo and Times Up movements, featuring a strong program of films by women directors. Six of the 12 films are in competition for "audacious, cutting edge and courageous" cinema, while other films centre on female characters.

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* How Madeleine Sami and Jackie van Beek's friendship survived The Breaker Upperers

"While mainstream cinema – and cinema in general – has a long way to go, we're seeing, at least through festivals, more and more films by and about women," festival director Nashen Moodley says. "That's a positive step, with still a lot to do."

The Breaker Upperers centres on two best friends and roommates, Jen (van Beek) and Mel (Sami), who provide a professional break-up service to partners not brave enough to dump their unwanted lovers. For a fee, they will act out a fake pregnancy or lie about a drowning to end a relationship.

But their cold-hearted business is threatened when Mel falls for a client – a handsome but not-overly-bright rugby player (James Rolleston, the now-grown-up star of New Zealand hit Boy) who has been trying to break up with his passionate girlfriend (Ana Scotney) by emoji.

Van Beek, 42, and Sami, 38, co-wrote, co-directed and co-star in the film that also has Celia Pacquola (Rosehaven) in her first feature film.

Given their very Kiwi sense of humour, the multitasking duo was were quickly described as a female Flight of the Conchords – a comparison they don't mind in the least given Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie are "dear friends". Another friend with similar comic talent, Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi – a high school friend of van Beek's – is executive producer of their film.

Seizing a moment when the New Zealand film industry was looking to encourage female directors, van Beek and Sami have delivered their own version of a buddy comedy.

As the partying continues around them in the bar, the duo banter on the phone about their background together that includes various theatre productions together over 20 years. Van Beek has previously written and directed a more serious film, The Inland Road, and appeared in the TV series 800 Words; Sami was in Top of the Lake and directed van Beek in the TV series Funny Girls.

Abigail Dougherty Rapid fire questionnaire with Madeleine Sami and Jackie van Beek to coincide their new film ‘The Breaker Upperers’.

"We actually met when I was 14 years old," Sami says. "I was in the national theatresports improv competition and Jackie was a tutor."

Van Beek chimes in: "A very young tutor."

Sami: "Yes, very young."

Van Beek: "I was 17 or 18 and I identified Madeleine Sami as one to watch. You did pretty well in that competition. Did you win?"

Sami: "There were no winners."

Van Beek: "No winners? What a lame competition."

Some filmmakers make sure they have a memorable story about a film's origins but, with an endearing New Zealand directness, van Beek says the idea just popped into her head while ambling around her kitchen one morning.

"I was reflecting on all those conversations I'd had with people about how awful it is having to break up with your partner and how you dread it and there's a lot of fear and angst involved," she says. "I just thought, 'wouldn't it be funny if you could outsource the responsibility [to] a company?'. I thought, "I'll never start that company because I'm way too lazy and not interested enough but it would make a very funny film'."

SUPPLIED The Breaker Upperers' open weekend box office was bigger than that of inspiration, Bridesmaids.

Sami not only liked the idea but suggested the title.

"I thought it was a stupid, stupid, silly title that made me laugh," she says. "It was a working title for a long time then it just kind of stuck."

Van Beek: "It was perfect because it really set the tone for the film ... Very Kiwi."

They spent four years on-and-off writing the film, enjoying inventing comic methods for breaking up couples.

"That was the fun part of the writing, coming up with ways the job could work," Sami says. "We wrote a big $50 million version of the film which was completely unrealistic for us to make because we were never going to get that sort of money – speedboats and scuba diving, like James Bond meets The Idiots.

"Once we had the premise, it was really about telling a story about some characters that were true to us and that we felt people could relate to – getting a buddy comedy element in there."

The duo surrounded themselves with an experienced team – largely women – so they could focus on their performances in the film.

"We left a lot of room for improvisation," van Beek says. "Sometimes Madeleine and I would tangent into what we considered comedy gold ...

Sami: "But some people might consider comedy poo. We've edited a lot of the comedy poo out."

The duo saw their film as subverting the romantic comedy genre, with Bridesmaids as a reference for its ensemble female cast and The Wedding Crashers as "a concept cousin".

Abigail Dougherty James Rolleston and Madeleine Sami star as off-beat lovers in the hit Kiwi film.

"It feels like a premise for the times," Sami says. "The way young people – and I say young people because Jackie and I are both happily married older women – now connect with each other on Tinder and things like that. It's a far more brutal world that we live in with technology in the way it allows us to step back from the confrontation and the responsibilities that we've had in the past. We actually had to talk to somebody to break up with them."

While the likes of Hunt for the Wilderpeople, What We Do in the Shadows and Flight of the Conchords suggest there is a particular quality to New Zealand comedy – deadpan, warm-hearted, down to earth and mumblingly self-effacing – the duo feel their film has a similar sense of humour to Australian comedies.

"There was that era of Australian film that just was so influential for me in wanting to be an actor – Muriel's Wedding, Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, The Castle," Sami says.

Van Beek: "Then later on Chris Lilley's stuff. And Kath and Kim."

Sami: "And the Comedy Company. My first gig was when I was eight years old at a family Christmas in Taranaki and I did Kylie Mole impressions; 'She goes, she goes'. I got my mum to put my hair in pigtails. I can still quote Con the Fruiterer. "

With the soft shell crab and broccoli bites having been swept away, it's time for the duo to head around the corner for the screening. Having already been to Hollywood to discuss future projects, they plan to co-direct again.

"It's lovely that people do seem excited that we're new female film directors," van Beek says.

Sami adds: "We barrelled ahead with this project and we just convinced everyone else and ourselves that it was possible. And it totally is."