A Life Together
What Inspired A Life together?
We initially had no idea what kind of film we wanted to make. It wasn’t until we started to spend time with Davo and Valletta as a couple that we were inspired to make the film about their relationship. The main inspiration for me came from wanting to connect Davo and Valletta’s story to as wide an audience as possible. This may seem like a simplistic answer because essentially thats what all filmmakers aim to do. For me though i really wanted to connect the audience to people they never thought they had anything in common with and have them feel a deep sense of empathy and things in common them. I feel like this is the best way to build understanding between people. At the moment there is a lot of shaming people for having less than ideal views on marginalised people. This only pushes people further away from compassion and understanding. You need to gently guide people into expanding their perspective rather than making them feel stupid and shutting them down. There is a guy called Christian Picciolini who is an ex-white supremacists from the states, he runs a non-profit called ‘Life After Hate’. His approach is to start on common ground with people with extremely racist views and work to slowly bring them back to reality. Surprise, surprise! this actually works to combat bad ideas becuase you are approaching people with humanity. I find this approach very inspiring and more effective than the tactics used by the self justified hate of the hard right and virtue signalling shaming of hard left. As well as simply being inspired by Davo and Daughter as people i was very inspired to make a film that respects both Davo and Daughter and the audience so they can find middle ground.
Was showing the world that people like Davo and Daughter actually have a lot to give and a lot we can learn from.
Yes it was, thanks for picking that up! I think this is so powerful becuase it shows Davo and Daughter to be people of dignity and wisdom. I absolutely loved being around them and learning from them. They have a very ‘take it as it comes’ approach to life which is something we can all benefit from. They have a lot to give, their stories, humour and commitment to the people they care about is admirable. I hope the audience learns from them.
Was A Life together the first film that you had screened at the St Kilda Film Festival?
Yeah it was the only film i have screened at St Kilda Film Festival. I only made one film before A Life Together which was a short narrative I co-directed. A Life Together in many ways is my first film really. It’s definitely my first Documentary. It’s a student film too. It was my grad film.
Apart from A Life Together what other films do you recommend people see during the St Kilda Film Festival tour?
I have only seen a couple of the films on the tour. Mrs McCutcheon is brilliant. I watched it with my Brother at MIFF last year and we laughed a lot. It’s also won every award in the southern hemisphere so you can see what all the fuss is about. I really want to see Lost Property too. Looks like an amazing piece of work!
Is A Life together the only film that you have directed? Where can people see your work?
I co-directed a narrative short a few years back called ‘Disappear’. It had a decent festival run at international festivals but not so much in Australia. It’s a good little film. You can watch it on Vimeo here.
I also directed a 40min doco called Voices last year after A Life Together was finished. I’m ironing out some of the bus in that film and it should be out and about by the end of the year.
Do you have any future projects we should know about?
I am currently working on a music Video for David Bridie which is a new thing for me. Really happy to be working with David Bridie. He is a very generous collaborator. I’m also developing a feature documentary which i cant talk much about at the moment. I’m also trying to get this this really cool filmmaking workshop for primary school kids off the ground. It’s the most fun i have had with a camera for ages. Currently I’m running one at Moonee Ponds West primary. Such cool kids there.
What is your favorite movie?
This is a hard one of course. I have lots of favourite films for lots of different reason but the one that still stands out for me is ‘Elephant’ by Gus Van Sant. After i watched that film I felt something i had never felt from a film before. Gus managed to capture something deeply troubling and was compassionate to that. I watched that film and wanted to be a director. It was kind of the catalyst at the time, so it will always be close to my heart.