We are live! Hello
everyone and welcome to Suburbia Cinema.
For those of you who don't know , um
it's the year-round art from culture
program from Manchester Pride
so that means we curate we fund we
support we promote and we mentor
LGBTQ+ artists across Greater Manchester
that
to help support them to make the work
they want to meet make and we do that
all year round so we're very lucky
normally we'd have a weekend of free
arts and cultural events
at August bank holiday today we have
just the Superbia Sunday
sunday but it's uh jam-packed with stuff
we've got an
online gallery and we have four
incredible
artists in conversations um which will
be live on our youtube
by now and this is the Superbia Cinema,
so hopefully our audiences will just
have what
a series of really exceptional lgbtq
short films
and i'm really excited to welcome um
some of those filmmakers uh with us
um and the films you will have seen
are chardonnay misha's binders uh joe
and gum's baby lies truthfully
uh invisible women which was directed by
alice smith
and produced by joe ingame and cripset
which was directed by
christopher mcgill and produced by
shivoham fahi and we're going to have
chance to
talk about those films but like dig into
a little bit of the filmmaker's other
works as well if we've got time
um so thank you everyone for joining us
it's really lovely to be connected
across our and maybe five different
cities or four different cities and
really appreciate you three different
countries yeah of course we're
international
internationals and and I always
say that um I think short film
is a genre that queer artists really
excel in
andI think as a form it's a it's a
place that our stories really seem to
flourish
and I think the selection of films today
is just
brilliant proof of that theory
um so I'm going to chat to each of you
about about your films and
I'll also open up the chat to everyone
here so we can kind of reflect and ask
questions because it's
kind of rare to get um such a diverse
bunch of talented filmmakers in one
space
so i'm going to start um Sade with
your piece that's okay and so shall they
and I
have a delayed but uh
inevitable project together that we're
going to be staying doing a show of
their work
at Paper Gallery in Manchester and
uh obviously it's been delayed paper is
a tiny tiny space
um so that's the thing that we're
looking forward to but I've been lucky
enough to spend time with chardonnay and
write an article about their practice
and
um the piece that we saw today was a
commission for the Trans Vegas
arts festival so I just want to thank
Transcreative for
for sharing that work with us and
it's it's so it's just been lovely to
see some of your work and to stay
connected with you in the meantime
Sade
what I love about your work and
this film included in that is that
there's kind of no edges to it
you really invite um the audience in
you tell us what you do and don't know
in the moment you tell us
you don't tell us what to feel you're
very gentle in your explanations and the
work kind of flourishes
because of that and that's what i really
take from your work
um thank you yeah you're welcome can you
talk about um about the film the
commission
and subject matter because it's a kind
of it's a hidden thing that you've made
visible in a really lovely way i think
yeah yeah so binders the film
um was just all about my current
kind of practice my art practice making
um
binders i started making them
in 2018 i think november
um i wanted to buy a binder if anyone i
guess i'm assuming that everybody
watching this would know what a binder
is
but if not um it's a garment that
um a lot of trans mask people used to
compress their breasts um to make an
appearance of a flat chest
typically one under clothes and i'd
never tried one never bought one
but i really wanted to but i also was
like very conscious of the fact i talked
about this in the film so i'm just kind
of regurgitating but
um punches of the fact that i've got a
large chest and so a binder wouldn't
have
kind of given me the desired effect so
to speak of a flat chest
and but i still wanted to experiment and
so i figured this was like the perfect
kind of catalyst for my
art practice um so i started
making them from different materials
firstly starting with canvas which was a
nice nod to being an art student
and and then started using denim
using um not perspex
vinyl and perspex would be a bit um
using vinyl um pleather
making like puffer jacket type material
ones and
and they kind of became a
as you said like an outerwear garment
and
i kind of rejected this idea of
stealth and presenting the transform
in a way that kind of issues
the fact that we are trans trying to um
appeal to some sort of like sis gays and
says
understanding of what we should present
like because i'm non-binary
and i try not to um uphold
any kind of gender norms and stuff in my
presentation
um i figured that celebrating the body
rather than trying to fit into this kind
of neat narrative
was my my aim with the binders
and so yeah they became like a style
piece that became
um something to be worn outside
something to
interrogate some of them have text on it
so people have to look closely at them
and read them
and which kind of defeats the purpose of
people not looking at your chest or
making your chest something that is
hidden um which was nice it's helped me
become more at one with my body help me
have less kind of insecurity surrounding
my chest um
and yeah i guess that's where the the
binders film came from yeah was just
talking about all of that and kind of
explained the process because a lot of
people see the binders and they don't
know what they mean
they just think they're like nice vests
which is fine
but um it's nice your film has that
perfect mixture of show
and tell yeah yeah people are just
coming into that world
that's really it's a brilliant kind of
visual
lesson and you have film as part of your
practice anyway
and in that film people will see you
kind of in natural settings
doing kind of elaborate physical poses
can you tell us a bit about
about that element yeah and so the
posing
started again from kind of interrogating
gendered um
expression and performance so i was
interested in how
posture posture itself is kind of
gendered
um and how i felt very
um aware
of how i posted myself in everyday life
and how
certain um stances could be considered
masculine
masculine and feminine and and
i made a film when i was in university
um where i copied the poses of life
drawing
um subjects and i looked at male and
female
kind of poses and so to speak
and wanted to kind of do them both to
kind of blow the lines between this
this expectation of a gendered posture
um
and then i don't know when i think
july or something last year i started
kind of exploring the countryside
and and i was just compelled like i was
in edale
to um to do these poses that was like
the only thing i could think of
doing when i was filming myself and and
so
from there it's just been a continual
thing i got into the countryside
are in quarantine i've been in my own
countryside in austin which is just
crusty crusty brooks around the corner
and then do these poses and and push my
body
and physically and mentally to kind of
observe it and
be at one with it and also just kind of
be at one with nature which has
been nice yeah yeah it's such a
brilliant unique
mix like binders the natural settings
the film
i just like it doesn't remind me of
anything and that's really
rare in art and and in film as well and
if anyone else want to um chip in talk
about how today's work or maybe i have
some questions for them
no pressure
yeah i just would like to say you know i
enjoyed it and
really enjoyed the really nice shots uh
really nice pace and
i like what you're saying there but
there's visibility and it's quite um
celebratory so yeah
yeah that's what i like about it making
like the invisible visible but
completely on the artist's terms
that's kind of really it's almost like a
like a loving
gesture because i think so much of like
queer and trans life especially
is is meant to happen behind the scenes
and we're not meant to say like you know
how we look after our body how do we
have sex how we change our body
how we stay well it's all kind of like
sequestered in some ways and this isn't
it's the opposite it's like
you know it's it's like runway sometimes
you just think it's
it's brilliant such a brilliant twist um
thanks for that charade and thanks for
being part of uh
cinema as well thank you thank you for
having me yeah you're welcome
um so we're gonna talk next about um
baby lies truthfully
can i ask
one question i was wondering is is how
you filmed it because there was you
posing but somebody else
holds in the camera so i wondered about
that yeah and um sometimes
sorry i'm just gonna say sometimes um
i have people with me but most of the
time it's just me with my tripod um i
have made
the films as well with other people i
made one with my mum doing the posturing
which was nice
um and taught her to do it so we did it
in tandem and
we had like quite a few people watching
i was like what the hell's going on
yeah so most of the time it's just me
with my tripod in the countryside
or on my phone
it's an interesting thing that it was a
lockdown film because
there's this i've made one chris has
made one and there's going to be a
little selection of films that have been
made so
so yeah it isn't interesting i didn't
yeah and it is
being able to film yourself using a
tripod like that
gives you incredible independence and so
you edited it
yeah yeah yeah yeah
lovely editing yeah and i love that it's
a performance when it happens but for us
in
the film so there's people who've seen
it live that we
yeah one of the um
sorry one of the uh films where i'm in
the water it was on new year's day and
i'd gone there at a deadline and i was
like i need to get it done no one will
be there it's fine
and then i went there and there were
literally like 40 people at this
waterfall watching me and i was like oh
god but i was like i need to get it done
i need to get it done and everyone's
just like walking the dogs like well and
it was freezing as well
and i'm in the water and just looking
like a weirdo but it's nice
it's fine what is that little impetus
like to keep going with it because
like a more shy person would be like
okay today's not the day but you went
there with the purpose and you just saw
it through
did you i mean i've driven afar and
also i had a deadline but also just
because i'm like i don't know
it is what it is like i have to do it
this is my piece and also
the performance aspect of it is part of
it so yeah
if i'm introducing someone to something
weird even if they never get the context
for it
they just like go home like someone was
in the in the waterfall like
stretching doing yoga like that that's
that's fine by me
yeah maybe they'll come across my film
one day which would be nice and then
with all the pieces that fall into five
i love i thought you were going to say
because i'm driven
but you were like
but it's really cold when you're
watching
it is that you just like look i'm really
free there might be 50 people off
camera or there might be no one and it's
not going to affect we don't know
yeah we don't know that's part of magic
really because they're so quiet as well
like it is nice
and like one of that one as well like a
dog i'd run in the
the shot and i was like you're not gonna
open up it
could be a bloop for real somewhere
someday that we might get there
i just i wouldn't i wanted to say that i
i adored it i thought it was
i thought it was um it
i think it's it's beauty lied it sort of
its beauty was in its simplicity in a
sense it was so
um devastatingly delivered and i thought
i really loved the the mix of the
um the graphic and the photoshop and the
artwork as well on onto the onto the
footage because i think
it it really uh connoted your your
practice as an artist as a whole and i
and i thought you
you know for in such a such as you know
relatively short period of time in that
film
you made some incredibly um important
and really thought-provoking
points that i'm still thinking about now
so i think it's really
uh devastating and i mean that in the
best possible way devastatingly powerful
means the work it's it's brilliant great
thank you so much
thanks joe and i know what you mean
about like that the window into your
practice y'all day because i really look
like
oh i know what your world looks like
you know i felt like yeah it's the place
that you are really in charge of and
that was like oh yeah i get it
and that's so rare because it was like
you say there's no it was it was like
transparent even though the content is
quite complex
and that's hard to get right um yeah
yeah
thanks for that that was brilliant um so
we're gonna bounce back
to you for baby lies truthfully um
which i mean i i love
because yeah
because firstly just because i'm so in
love with like
uh archival footage and especially like
a patchwork collage approach to it i get
very emotional with those visuals anyway
but also like i have a art practice
that's kind of rooted in
like hiv and aids activism and artists
and david wrote i'm not sure how you
pronounce it
we're billiard there's there's many
different ways robbie lard is is what i
tend to come for it was a name that
had passed my uh eyes years ago and i
i knew so little about him and now i'm
just like
want to know more so i guess we can
start there how did you
first hear about this this artist
and what was your what was the impetus
to turn that knowledge into
a film for you i think it well i
um i first came across him in um
in the the bargain book of the ica
um they were that which which is
one of my favorite horns um but they you
know they were they were throwing out
all these
books or giving them away and in it was
one of his
um volumes and this was about five six
seven years ago
um and i picked it up and i remember
reading it i remember reading the verse
and i thought
oh this must be new this this this must
be a new and emerging
um queer poet um
and then when i looked at it it had been
published in 1987 i thought my god
that's incredible that something so
raw and arresting could be made 30 years
ago and
i thought oh well you know who is this
you know
i'm sure he's gone on to great things
and of course he was dead within the
year of this this publication
so um he i i i really
sort of became a bit obsessed with him
in a way i really wanted to know more
and there's so little out there about
him you know i think there's
it's interesting because at the moment
we're seeing a huge um
revival and revision of artists who are
lost
um to two aides you know there's been a
big
um keith herring documentary which the
the bbc
did and um uh and
um you know people like robert maple
thought were getting
you know lots of retrospectives and all
that kind of thing
but there's there's been nothing really
on david um
and he he was a true visionary
and still is and so um i i'd always
wanted to do something
and then it was only when um i had an
edit which which finished in march and
then of course
you know um the the current situation
happened
and um and i thought oh well maybe i
maybe now's the time to to do something
so that that's how it how it came about
well i mean i love how you talk about
that discovery because i remember
a similar thing happening with like
listening to arthur russell for the
first time and thinking wow this is
incredible who is this because it
sounded so contemporary to me
and then only to discover that he'd been
gone for a long long time
so there's a weird element of like kind
of hauntology when we deal
with you know artists who have been lost
to aids but also what i love about
david's writing is it's really
irreverent it's like gala
remember it's very camp it's very knife
edge
and actually we haven't kept that from
the history of like artists with aids
we've kept the kind of
um the very kind of reverent and
militant approach but we haven't kept
the playfulness and we haven't kept the
you know that that the bit to me that's
really queer
actually is some of what we've lost
because we're so cautious to be
respectful
that we've lost some of that element and
it's there so strongly in david's
words it's a very queer thing to me
watching it
yeah absolutely i think it's um
when he when he got his diagnosis this
is
an anecdote from from gilbert and george
where he's you know
um they helped and supported him a lot
but apparently when he did get his
diagnosis he still had shows to do
and started um introducing himself to
these sort of art critics and buyers as
david robel aids
and you know and sort of selling himself
on that and you know these people
thought oh my god
um but i i agree with you he he sort of
sits
on the on the knife point of comedy and
tragedy and actually the only
i agree with you about not not many um
we haven't we don't really remember that
sort of thing because we're so reverent
and so whatever
but one of the people and i'm so glad
he's seen it and he likes it one of the
people that reminded me of so much was
david hoyle and his and his humor and
his
you know um uh approach to
you know to being a gay man so yeah
absolutely and i remember
anecdotally that when david's stage show
included
um his hiv test and him getting his
results and everything
and that was considered very scandalous
but now the narrative is very much about
be open about testing
about and it's so like it's like the
queer art precedes the rest of the
conversation as usual
i'd love to bring the rest of you in
about um baby lies truthfully what did
you think and what did you feel
siobhan do you want to push or oh sorry
shadow
okay yeah and yeah i loved it uh
was um obviously very humorous very
witty
uh good use of raunchy pornography there
but i think um you know uh
what's the line so perfectly like it's
seamless you know you've got the tension
of these kind of
pornographic shots but it just works so
seamlessly with the with the story and
that kind of
poignant ending it's a bit of a sucker
punch it's just leaves you feeling you
really feel it
after watching it you know a good few
minutes afterwards you're like wow
you know it really hits you but yeah
yeah very thought-provoking
and yeah i loved it it was really good
thanks anyone else want to chip
in what led you to
this i mean you already talked about you
know the subject and how you kind of
found him but like what what what
made you feel connected to his story
um so poignantly did you see parallels
in between your own life
and your own experiences or
um yeah yeah i did i know and i still do
and i think he um i think he's
he's very i i i was i was just very
struck by his
his words and i do relate to his
experience hell of a lot
i i relate to his experience a lot as a
um
the sort of the the meat market aspects
of the gay scene
i think are something that he was very
good at um
describing and um and i think that still
exists today it might not exist in in
the same bars and clubs that he went to
but if you go on any of the apps
it's still you know that you know
um particularly when it's you know
able-bodied white's this game and you
know they're very
you know precious in there they believe
you know
it makes the cut and so um he he was
he was very on onto that very early on
and i and i really
identified with that not that i'm a fast
i like what you both you said as well
greg about like the um
the queer scene being ahead of the
the game with the thing like it's nice
to see that it's nice to also hear
about people from not not
now from back in the day as i mean i'm
25 but i feel like i'm so
kind of divorced from queer history
sometimes to see this film
and also um invisible women as well like
i just enjoy hearing all these
perspectives that i
am so kind of divorced from and because
we're in this like social media bubble
and things like that i
feel like we're just very um aware of
like young people's stories so it's
really nice to hear that and also to see
you make a film about
um somebody else because i focus
entirely on myself
so it's like strange for me to see um
somebody
yeah somebody look at another subject
well i love that idea about the film is
doing that work
like and filling in our narratives for
generations
and of course like your workshop day
will be will be that for someone else in
the future
hopefully yeah i mean that's a really
nice
kind of legacy and actually we um
it's a kind of good segue into invisible
women because i think
of of of all people's stories like
lesbian history
is the first to kind of fall off the
page and like
film and documentary is such a brilliant
way to fight against that and the
there's two bits and invisible women
that always really touched me
and both knees at the beginning where
she goes to the library
um it's lucia goes to the library isn't
it yeah basically to say
does anyone remember that's the essence
of those questions like
is there anything about the women's
movement in manchester is there anything
about the work that we did
and to be met with no and then the film
is off then because the film does that
work and that's the thrill of it
of that piece for me um but i'm shocked
because i'm such a swat about
lgbt history that angela and lucia story
had never
you know come to me through through the
community but if
if you do ask you know older uh
manchester lgbt people they will go oh
yeah
yeah have a story and and that's all in
one place in the print
how how did you find andrew and lucia or
how did they find you and i know you
worked with dallas
on the yes yes so alice yeah i didn't um
alice
um smith directed invisible women and
obviously they did
a really good job with it um but i
i came across them um i i was making a
series for the for the bbc in 2017
and it was called um the the people's
history of lgbtq britain
and um the the
the series was um exploring
lgbtq uh life from britain since 67
through to now and 67 is when uh
homosexuality was part decriminalized
between
two men over the age of 21 in private
um so so and when when the bbc
we were talking to them about the series
they said well it's all just going to be
men isn't it because the law never
pertained to
women um and i i sort of had a
an exception to this because when when
you look at the people who fought
you know on the wolfenstein committee
ten years prior to get the law made and
when you looked at who was involved with
the gay liberation front
there were loads of women there were
loads of um transgender people there
were loads of transsexual people there
were loads of
um lesbians you know that that so
i didn't quite understand the logic and
they said okay well we'll probably you
know
if you find some extraordinary women we
might include them and
um i thought okay well okay i'll go for
this then
and i found um a blog about
um radical uh music in the northwest
and lucia was mentioned in it and they
said lucia was a member of the glf
in manchester now i i get really
sort of this is a um a thing of mine
but i really really love the fact that
the glf has had this
sort of resurgence in in popular opinion
and popular knowledge over the last few
years
however i do have an issue with the fact
that it is
only ever mentioned in london it's only
the and i know
lots of the the older men who were
involved with london glf and they are
sick of it as well
so to have to find lucia and to find
that at the same time
the the very nice university educated
men in
in london were starting the glf up in
manchester there were two
working-class women starting in a pub
was just brilliant
and i thought well why why have why
doesn't anyone know who they are why
you know why has no one asked them their
story and that's
and they did appear in this series but
they appeared in the series for all of
two minutes and it was mainly
susan carmen crying with them so i
thought okay well why don't we
do something else and tell their story a
bit a bit longer and that's how
invisible
um women came about yeah
i mean that's fanta and there is
something super monkey mean about it
because like
they're both irish and like manchester
united city and it's like
i love that that look at the first
conversation
and she says you know what's what's
liberation what's the front
like she's learning and then she's like
okay well that's what we need to do how
do we get there and that's like the fine
point of activism
it's just it's brilliant um
and yeah whenever i watch it it's like
the first time again because that's real
but i also like i was getting really
excited then when you talked about
following that first trail like who
what's this name who was she what did
she do and suddenly
opening up into well you asked for
extraordinary women and now
we've found them that's like such a
thriller that must be a thrill for a
filmmaker to
suddenly cutting on to that you know
that story
and to be able to follow it through
that's a that's a pause for an artist
i've read
it yeah it is and it's i'm doing other
stuff at the minute and i
um it's it's it's very much
like a i sort of find myself more
becoming like a police detective and um
sort of having to sort of dig and dig
and dig and dig and and find these
and uh find people who in in the case of
these new things don't we don't
really don't want to talk um and and
trying to yeah trying to find them and
trying to convince some of the value of
recording their history is
is a big um challenge yeah sure
and who wants to jump in about this uh
incredible
incredible film invisible woman
i know it's a favorite go ahead go ahead
but i i love both films
a lot i love the way both films are
about archive i mean
yeah the first film is so so harsh
on the generation gap between men which
obviously goes on
still but yeah it's it's
so painful really um
invisible woman is one of my favorite
films and i had a funny
year when i had a film out that was
chasing
um invisible women around the festivals
and it's a really difficult position
because i was always up against
invisible women i always wanted
invisible women to win hello my
friend obviously a lot of invisible
women
so many times but it's one of those
films where the characters literally
walk off the page
because at most screenings you meet
they're brilliant they um they they
yeah they did this thing i have to say
they did this we did the screening at
the
um they they angela and lucia are
absolutely incredible
and that they have done that you know
they're both women in the
you know 70s i'm sure they won't mind me
saying this and they have done
nearly 50 screenings up and down the
country and abroad like they
have gone for it and um but there was
one screening we did at the irish
heritage center in ireland where
it did i i did sort of see
the ghost of like bruce forsyth and to
lucia because she just sort of stood up
with this mic and then started working
the room and she was singing songs
and it was just like this it sort of
turned into this whole vocabulary
and maybe that's the next thing for them
maybe maybe they need
maybe that's what they their next thing
is yeah i mean we need to be really
careful not to like historicizing too
much because collectively they
know they've forgotten more than most of
us will ever know in terms of what
they've
what they've done and yeah it was great
to have them at the
at the premiere in manchester because
i mean the the film was almost like
dwarfed by the reality of them being
there
but it was great to see like loads of
young lesbians there
who did not know and that's the thing
that each kind of
activist history a lot of it is about
making that power available
so a lot of people think that activism
the thing that someone else does
they don't know that it's people just
like them who have made the biggest
impact
and they're very modest about their kind
of heroic state yeah it's very easy to
put someone on a pedestal but their very
ordinary nurse is what makes
it extraordinary you know i mean the
power of that collective and everything
i loved it i really like sorry i just
wanna say i really liked seeing
um well hearing their perspective on
manchester
as a place because to me growing up
i always heard about the gay village and
see
well even before like understanding
myself as part of that community i
always saw manchester as kind of a
gay friendly place and obviously never
was really taught about any of the
history
of of it um and it was really
it was sad but it was really interesting
to hear their perspectives as older
women
um to just hear about the things that
they faced and also the bravery and
like when they were saying they just go
to pubs and like kiss each other and
stuff like
it seems so kind of inane now but
to understand that at one point it was
really provocative like it's
it's it's it's interesting yeah i guess
yes no still i was but i i know i was
just going to say on that on that point
actually that i did i had a really good
um sort of really in-depth chat with
lucia the other day actually about
something we were
talking and she was saying that um
we were talking about exactly that
actually and she was saying how
um in it might not be
obviously you know you've only got to
look at the news and lesbians
still do face violent oppression and
attacks
you know that they do but in particular
um transgender men and women and
non-binary
people do and and it was so interesting
to hear her speak about it because she
she remembered in the in the 60s the
village being populated by those people
and there and they're being attacked and
it's
and it's it's a cause of great concern
of hers that
it is still happening but sort of
increasingly so happening today but not
just on
the bars and on the scene but on things
like twitter
you know and she was talking about a
certain um
you know children's author who's come up
with some very interest
you know horrific opinions recently and
saying how damaging
they they are um and so when she says at
the end of the film the fight goes you
know carries on
it does and it goes to your point greg
that they're not
they're not stuck in aspect these two
women they are both so
sharp and clever with their politics
still it's it's amazing
yeah and it's real it's a real like call
to arms for
other generations when someone has that
long view of history as well
and also it's quite touching like
thinking about um the david
robert and that film side by side if
that there's a gap
in that generation very often with with
gay men
and um and when those lesbians lesbian
voices are still there from those
same generations it i mean it's it's a
it behooves us to sort of amplify them
because there is so much of that
generation missing and i love that
element
of that film too i just want to talk a
little bit about
archive footage and it's such a big part
of these
films and like how do you go about it
where do you access it and how do you
find it there's such
brilliant imagery that's so evocative
just even as itself where do you start
with a
you know making a piece like that
um it's it's you've got to
um do a lot of digging
you've got to think out of the box you
can't you can go to the usual archive
houses
but i try not to not because i don't
you know not because i was the usual
places but because
i'd rather try and support um smaller
places and you've got to be
you you've really got to do your best to
contact them and find them and
and get the get a good deal done because
i don't i i get
um i i believe people should be paid for
the work basically and even if they
filmed it years and years ago they need
they need you know to become to be
compensated
but you've just got to think quite um
uh like i said sort of out of the box
and and find
um filmmakers from from yesterday and
even
even not filmmakers i mean even things
like
public information films or you know
wherever or
you know old old porn films you know
work in lots of ways yeah and siobhan
you've got
experience and obviously passions are
passionate about
archive yeah passionate and and
yeah obviously archive the archives must
be paid for but
you know a lot of filmmakers are micro
micro like myself
i've got a film at the moment that i was
hoping to show but
and that needs to need to do some work
on the archive that i'm i'll do a
crowdfunder for
and in fact it's interesting because
some of the the archive i shared with
um with your film and chris gave me this
idea so i was making a film chris
suggested showing paul
putting bits upon film in it and i said
well i can't do that and he
said what about just the beginnings of
them so i went to bishopsgate and i
watched like in fact
films that haven't been digitized at
bishopscope um
by the way um and um
so watch them and yeah the beginnings of
it's really interesting what you can do
with just looks and stuff
i didn't end up using those because i
couldn't digitize them in time
but i'm working on a feature at the top
at the moment documentary
and we couldn't do it if we had to pay
for archive i mean
forget it main reason is because that
archive doesn't exist
yeah because there is no archive of
this is about punk women in london in
the 80s that archive doesn't exist
so we've had to go to the community and
it it's been a
um the people who got council flats and
so who had cupboards
where they could store stuff for years
that's where it is
and it's gold and it's gold and it's
gold and it's beautiful
i love the texture of archive i love
because editing is like
it's like a sort of it's like knitting
i'm just learning about it at the moment
so it's a bit like knitting with files
basically
yeah and or but it's 3d knitting of
course with sound but it's 3d
and i just think the texture of archive
and you can take you can take license
with it a lot more
so for instance some of the archive and
so
i haven't introduced myself much i'm
siobhan i'm producer and i have a film
that's just hit picture lock this week
so it's very exciting
and this is rebel dykes it's beautiful
beautiful
anyway so so the archive that we've used
you can take liberties with it
so what happens when you collect archive
that was filmed in a fetish club
you cannot show that stuff but with
archive you can get
you can add a bit of you can you can you
can make it invisible you know you can
hide people it can
it's it's it's i adore bark i
i mean i'm not i'm a filmmaker who
doesn't really know how to hold a camera
so it's also kind of handy for that
because i filmed it for me yeah
it's a beautiful beautiful but it's
incredibly expensive
and and i agree with you the people have
to be paid but also this is some of its
hour of history you know um and one of
the films i've made is used like tourist
film
and you think that that belongs to me as
a country it's
you know if my taxpayers won't be
grandma's or my great-grandmother's
taxes
why can't i use it and i'll be good with
it
extraordinary life
these films might not have a future
otherwise
do you know what i mean like to to bring
something out of the ark
magic to them i mean your film the
the bits of the archive that i could
know quite well in your film
is so used in a different way than than
it was originally made how i've used it
i mean it's it's it's the filmmaker who
makes it's the remaking of it makes a
new art form
yeah of course that's quite a queer
thing as well and it's quite a punk
thing as well
like repurposing and reviewing yeah yeah
the colored nature of it like i really
love that
um and we'll we'll talk a bit about like
rebel dykes in a minute because
it's like it's it's it's not just the
film it's a project in the community as
well isn't it
but um i'd love to go to you uh
christopher this is from mcgill
directed quicksilver born you produced
it and
that film has had such an impact on me
and um
first of all i just want to talk about
like the incredible like central
performance um can you talk about your
lead actor because
i just thought he was remarkable yeah
david's brilliant honestly what i find
uh
i let him there party actually uh
got to know him through you know
a couple of parties actually but um yeah
really
lovely guy really funny uh but i don't
know there was something about him i
just
saw something there's something in his
face he's very expressive
and uh so when we got when i when i
propose it to him i think at first he
was apprehensive but
no in the end he never acted before yeah
he'd never acted before
before yeah so he really took the help
but i have to say i was worried so
and you know we had we'd put means you
want to put on a nightclub
for the filming scene and i was really
worried all these people were here we'd
organized all is all ready to go the
first
shooting day was the nightclub so we
wanted to throw them in the deep end
with you know rehearse
to navigate the scene but i just thought
what if he
were three bottles of waffle it doesn't
turn off so
and he and he did you know first time
actor you know really big
um spotlight on him in that situation
and he's done really really well
so yeah yeah he's a lucky lucky find
actually
yeah and it's a beautiful performance
and he's got that thing that you just
can't teach people was
it it seems like the camera's not there
i mean he just like fills the screen in
those moments and
um it's so vulnerable and
yeah i loved it and where did you draw
the story like the narrative of crips is
from
that experience uh well uh i'd worked on
a
short film documentary before that it
was a time-based arts documentary that's
uh my background so i was working with
my colleague moya crowley on that
and so we're just collecting lots and
lots of stories working with these
asylum seekers for a participatory
project for over a year
and so i collected loads of stories and
some of them were really harder when
um so so from that basis quite a few
stories that emerged
and the one that really stood out to me
amongst others
was around um the uh
the experience for gay people as asylum
seekers and
and and the more i delved into that the
more i realized these horrible
and you know ways that people have been
treated and the way they've been
questioned
and how that has changed but how it's
still how people are still in the same
situation
you know how do you improve your
sexuality and how do you
integrate into you know
western society when you know these
people are dealing with
trauma with internalized homophobia in a
really
you know extreme way so i just really
wanted to kind of as much as a short
film i really wanted to touch upon that
and try and give a sense of the
characters in the world with that yeah
and it really does that and what it also
does it invites inquiry
because you know that it's part of a
much bigger experience that story and
everything like the club scene that you
were describing is it's so
pivotal and the impact that had on me
was when i saw that
space i was like oh that's my world like
i recognize that world i
i can flourish there i can feel safe
there and for
ayo that's the it's the i o it's the
opposite
so it's a challenge for him it's an
unknown and it's like a trap almost
and for anyone with privilege in the
community to hear
to hear that to understand that what's a
welcoming space for one person
is a is a frightening space for another
is is like
it's a really important lesson and to
visualize it is like it's just such a
great
you know it's just such a great um
use of film i think thank you i mean i i
felt that way with the club i really
wanted to have fun with it
and and you know i know siobhan's the
same
stay in mind with that you know we
wanted to have fun with that and just
do as we wanted to have a club you know
something out there
you know the kind of kind of club nights
you see that are a bit more
maybe underground or intimate but
i think in a way what was kind of
feeling with that as well is i think
even for people being introduced to the
gay scene for the first time in the
younger
there is that kind of thing of it's
quite scary and there's all these things
you have to deal with but i think for
putting ourselves in the shoes
of an asylum seeker just how how
more extreme that culture shock might be
yeah
absolutely and does anyone else want to
and talk about and crypt cryptics while
we're all together
i liked what you said sorry um about
it it kind of inspiring you to seek
further
um i definitely felt that when i watched
it
um i knew obviously there was some kind
of context to it i knew and it seems
like it's a
an institutional thing it's not just
watching it and this is one person's
experience it
you can feel that this is a a large kind
of history um
and it kind of feels like a call to
action in some way
um and ties into what we saw with
invisible
uh women where you see a problem
and you feel the need to to kind of
rectify it like i felt i saw it i felt i
didn't have the words for it but i could
see that
you know and just just the line of
interrogation and questioning
at the beginning was so uncomfortable um
and then the way where he's there taking
the photos
to kind of provide this evidence felt so
overwhelmed in the in the space
and then deletes them at the end like
there was just so much there it was
really really
really powerful yeah i agree absolutely
and you do a lot with a very small i
mean like you said the delete
it just felt like something way down but
also it was also like
why should i like it was it was a
reclamation of some kind of power for
him as well which i was very
like very moved by did you want to say
something about
about clips also yes i i mean
i i i thought it was extraordinary and i
think
it is extraordinary and i think it's um
like you said that that interrogation
scene where it's the quite you know i
thought that was beautifully
um edited and handled how to you know
the constant barrage of questioning
again and again and it gets more
intimate and more private
and in a and you know we're all very you
know as you said
greg talking about privilege you know
over here you would never
dream of answering those questions you'd
never dream of of
of um somebody you know intruding
into your um sexuality in your life like
that
whereas and and you know sexuality we
you know we all know in our sort of
theorized well you know
that sexuality can't be labeled it can't
be tied down it can't be
but for the you know for the for the
benefit of that system
of the um asylum and immigration system
it has to be
so boxed in and so hemmed in and so
um anachronistic to what to what it is
as a lived experience i thought it was
really
again so sort of very simply but
devastatingly so
done and um and as well the deleting
at the end broke my heart because i i
sort of took it differently to you greg
i didn't see it as like uh
i you know why should i do i sort of
thought it was like what's the point
you know i mean i it was heartbreaking
because here's this man he's clearly
very
alone and isolated um you know
trying to pass off this this life and
and and
um unable to do so i thought it was um
i i thought it was breathtaking yeah
okay well
thank you it just struck me earlier what
shall they was saying about you know we
don't know what we don't know about our
history and they're just
what a glorious opportunity for even
just this collection of films that we're
talking about now
if if teenagers were able to see them
you know
imagine what the impact of seeing it at
16 it would have been a
you know a life-changing experience for
me
and that's what i mean about where that
short film is is the place where queer
stories were
just seem to really flourish and we've
gone on for quite a long time but i did
want to ask you something siobhan about
about being a producer because people
from outside the film
world don't necessarily know how a film
gets made and you come to
film producing kind of like in the last
few years
and you're just like really excelling at
it and
and turning out these beautiful pieces
and supporting these amazing projects
what is that like what does your work
involve
um well zoom
an awful lot to soon a lot of a lot of
working with really creative people and
being feeling very very privileged
and i'm one of those i've got a few like
bond mops but one of them is like
a successful director works with people
who are in
who are massively more talented than
them
and that's my that's my policy so i'm
it's great working with chris i mean
i've been
i've been very lucky i'm just finishing
a master's and excellent masters in in
scotland
and which we did part-time me and chris
and um and so as part of that i ended up
directing a couple of films
and so i it's it's so i learned from the
people i
work with so so i was very lucky to be
in on the edit with crips
so crips has once i've only got one
dialogue scene you'll note
so i learned so much about sound design
by working with
um Chris and and Chris the sound
designer that Chris likes working with
Marco
and yeah so it's a real two-way thing
and
Greg you've known me a while you might
know i used to be a nurse
yeah I do know that yeah to me i see
similarities
and i i i like to be nice to be
nurturing and to make people
you know to this morning so it's very
exciting as i say
at the moment i'm sort of um
got a lot of balls in my hands i think
that
think about being a producer but one of
them is i've got a lot of fabulous short
films that are all hitting the
distribution now
amazing one of chris is a documentary
that's not even
hit the festivals yet is it me it's just
i am about i am drag queen which is just
um i've got a feature that's hit picture
lock in maybe it's coming in now on
Vimeo
wow so hot this is rebel dykes which has
been paid for by the community
i mean as a producer I would look to
Joseph Joseph is what I would call a
producer Joseph's able to raise funds
and everything
Sorry Siobhan you are a producer I'm
sorry you are
so don't start that
emerging deferred to joseph
um yeah so so
it's a dead exciting time because why
the hell
can we like not i mean you know the
world literally could end
very soon so we might as well make art
yeah
I'm here for that what else to do um
and jesus it kept me through the
pandemic you know a lot of us seem to be
making
lockdown films yeah thank god for
creativity i made one
yeah i think all of us were editing or
something during
yeah yeah i mean it's been
it's the it's been the greatest greatest
greatest thing that's happened really i
mean you've had no i've had great things
all my life but it's been a recently
great thing was becoming a filmmaker
and going to college and learning about
it and
and great and i'd love people to know
that it's the thing that's available to
them like i've i've just made
my own short film for the first time
ever and that was
like a response to lockdown and it's
like it's partly my
lockdown diaries and it seems really
simple now but i know that in six months
in a year it's gonna be like an archive
piece and i'm
just invested in it for that playful
historic
reason you know and that's what I was
saying before about wonderful
I'm glad you're getting into film thank
you yeah it was really exciting
um and everything that we have when can
we see it
very soon
when i first got into because i had a
story to tell this was the rebel dyke
story i started collecting all of this
so i didn't purposely go into making
film but it's just
i thought well i can go and do a phd
about this because I've got this great
story you know piece of research
but who everybody loves the movie you
know what i mean it's such a great way
of
reaching across generations across
um yeah yeah so Rebel Tax has become a
whole impact
and what we call it an impact which
juicer is
really what i do a lot from rebel dykes
i put on a lot of
i ran a film club of cult dyke film club
through the
lockdown that was like hollywood
arriving because
because of you know the time difference
thing between la and the uk is really
handy
i like
exhibition in London in Spring covered
covered you know as long as covered
let's just happen
and and and you know we've got some
strong
um executive producers we've got like a
just
you know want to make movies
what are my movies well I mean all of
your work
has been really really cherished by me
and we will always always share and
promote everything you do through
Superbia
because we have like a new page
following and
I always say I learned everything I
know in Manchester
great i love that what a legacy
um i'm going to end it there i just want
to say thank you
to Siobhan to Christopher to Sade and to
Joe
and um i hope everyone has had the
chance to watch these films they're
going to be online and for the sunday
and the monday
so if this conversation is what you've
watched first i hope it's inspired you
to go
and see um and you know pick up a camera
feel empowered and like
you know you follow that impetus to tell
a story
and we'll be here to watch it um so
thank you so much to all of you big love
to you all
and thank you Greg, thank you Superbia
Thanks so much, goodnight, bye!
