Her Own Music is part of Sydney Film Festival’s 2020 program as part of the Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films. Directed by Olivia Aleksoski, Her Own Music follows Maddie, a high-school student on the cusp of graduation. As a relationship blooms with another student, Maddie is forced to make a choice: suppress her newfound self or throw out her life to date?
Janine: It’s very refreshing to see a queer coming-of-age story set in Australia. What do you think queer cinema means to Australia, especially in the current climate?
Olivia: First of all, I think you can never have too many queer stories. What’s really interesting was that when we first wrote the script, there was heaps of funding going out to queer cinema for the anniversary of Mardi Gras. Different institutions were handing out a lot of money so that was our push to finish the script. Recently, there has been a push for queer voices because people have started to realise that there haven’t really been many queer Australian stories. Especially from my experience, from a female perspective. I was looking at Blue Is the Warmest Colour as a reference and that’s just…that second sex scene is a lot…I mean, talk about the male gaze! I’m pushed by wanting to see a story that resonated with me and my experience. There can never be too many perspectives when it comes to cinema like that. Queer Screen gave some money to this amazing filmmaker who was telling a story from his experience of being a queer son within a Chinese family. He used that dual identity to show his journey to acceptance in both worlds. I thought that was beautiful.
I haven’t seen that film but I would get so much out of seeing it. Individual stories that are uniquely Australian come in every shape and size with endless options. I knew that Her Own Music was pretty specific. It’s not particularly inclusive, these characters definitely have a privileged upbringing and it’s not particularly diverse in terms of racial exploration. But that’s not the story I was trying to tell and I didn’t want to tell that story because it’s not my story. You can get really caught up in making the perfect queer film that ticks all intersectional boxes, but I just don’t think that that’s everyone’s job. Just sticking with one story, especially in the short film medium, and being really specific about what you want to say with that one person.
Of course, individual queer stories each have an important place in Australian cinema. Her Own Music reminded me so much about the private all-girls high school one of my friends went to. Some of the stories she told me could’ve easily been about any of the other students in the film. But also, she’d tell me about how homophobic her school could be. I remember before their Year 10 formal, students who were taking a girl as their date would only be allowed to attend if they signed a document stating that they weren’t homosexual. What kind of research did you do to accurately portray a queer coming-of-age experience in Australia?
I went to one of those schools and for me, my experience was that it wasn’t overtly homophobic. I don’t remember anything so homophobic as what you just described, but being gay was definitely not okay. All of the homophobia was implicit. You didn’t talk about same-sex relationships because they just didn’t exist. I definitely got into trouble once people started realising. I was a model student and I started ending up in principal’s offices. I was like, I’m not sure why I’m here. I don’t know if I’m in trouble or not. It was always about this ‘unsettledness’ they had around the relationship. Alexandra Morgan, who plays Maddie, also went to one of those schools and so did Zoe Terakes.
We all had an experience of being a queer teenager growing up in that environment. We all brought our own experiences of what that was like. I didn’t do any particular research but it was definitely drawn from my own experience of an institution that holds, at its core, Christian values which implicitly tells people that same-sex relationships are not okay. What that does to your psyche, when you start exploring your own sexuality and realise that you’re sickened by it, is horrific…that it has birthed your own internalised homophobia that you have to deal with. That homophobia was really subtle, it was casual, it was off-hand, and it was ingrained in these values that we were brought up in. It wasn’t inclusive at all.
Of course, this is a queer story, but more broadly, it’s a story about pressure and expectations. High school is an intensified time when people are trying to figure out who they are but also trying to fit in and set up their future. Did you choose the high school setting as a metaphor about conformity in broader society or were you looking to tap into and speak to this particular age?
A bit of both. I definitely was very aware of using the school setting as larger metaphor for societal pressures. I was writing the film at a time when I was feeling pressured to decide who I was. I had just come out of university. I’d been in an institution since the age of five and I was finally twenty-seven years old. That’s when I realised, this is it now, I have to really be an adult. It was a weird kind of very pressure and time because all my friends had jobs and were buying houses and having babies. I just kept delaying all that real adult stuff. I was interested in high school as the most extreme example of those pressures. That last year of high school is built on making it feel like the rest of your life will be decided by this one mark that you’ll receive, which is so outrageous. I feel like Maddie, as a character, had just gone with the flow and nothing was particularly hard for her before this. I got the impression that she pretty much just followed the rules… they worked for her and she was benefiting from them. Then someone comes along, knocks her off her train tracks and says ‘here’s another way to look at the world.’ I remember when I first came out, it felt like I had been asleep my entire life and it was the first time I’d woken up. Nothing bad had happened to me, I just wasn’t present up until that point. When I found a new group of people, a new way of living, an openness that I’d never experienced before, I realised that I’d been playing a role the whole time before. Now, I’m still awake and I feel alive.
I definitely understand what you mean. I’ve been out of high school for almost two years now and I remember graduating and feeling intense relief. That last year of high school had been this weird cave of pressure and stress. It’s a really unique part of your adolescence that seems to hold so much weight at the time, yet retrospectively, it really doesn’t. I could really feel Maddie’s relief and sense of peace at the end of the film. Especially because of the closing song. That ‘Final Song’ was written and performed by your lead, Alexandra Morgan. What was the process of creating that like?
I knew that music would be central part of the story and the lead role was written for Ally (Alexandra Morgan). She’s an incredible musician and I had a scene of her playing piano and singing embedded in the film. We ended up cutting that scene, which was heartbreaking for me. But it just did not work where it sat in the film and took all the energy out of the moment. Right up near the end of finishing the film, I thought, ‘This isn’t right,’ and I called Ally and asked her to write a song. She felt a lot of pressure so I told her to think about what Maddie wants to say at the end of her journey. I wanted her to think about what Maddie hadn’t yet said by the end. I tried to relieve Ally’s pressure by letting her know that I didn’t need it to be a perfect song. I knew that whatever she put together would be right. In the end, what she put together worked perfectly. She wrote an acoustic ukulele version which we sent off to our composer who then produced it. Our sound mixer threw the whole thing in with the waves to tie it into the sound design. Considering that everyone was in different states and it was all done remotely, it came together surprisingly well. I’m really glad that it ended up in this film because, like I said, I was pretty devastated that there wasn’t a moment where we get to hear Ally singing.
That sounds really hectic. The last thing I want know is – what’s a film that impacted you in your youth?
A film that really resonated with me was Frances Ha. I absolutely love that film.
Ah, I love it!
I could watch it over and over and over again. I get something new from it every single time. I love the massive monologues that she has about her life…and the way she just oozes insecurity and awkwardness. It is a love story that’s about friendship and as a woman, some of the most intense relationships I’ve ever had are with my female friends. Frances Ha is just so intimate. I love the silly moments of her dancing in the street in black and white. It just worked so beautifully. Another one would be Princess Cyd. I love it because it’s a really great example of that youthful confidence that teenagers can have. You can’t fake that. I wanted that same energy for Tessa’s character which is why I’m so glad that Zoe Terakes played Tessa. They were young, around nineteen, when we filmed and it felt so right to have that youthful energy. I was so surprised it was written and directed by a man. I thought, ‘Wow, this guy’s figured it out.’ It was exactly the kind of reckless abandon in which you enter into sexual relationships when you’re young. It’s also an unashamedly queer film.
Both those films are really great. Is there anything else you wanted to say about Her Own Music?
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Thanks so much for this interview Olivia. That was super fun.
That was super fun. I really enjoyed it. This is definitely my favourite interview. Thank you!