WXFF 2020: Zoe Hunter Gordon
Our film festival Women X is on the way and today we are sharing a wonderful interview with Zoe Hunter Gordon, director of the fantastic documentary short ill, actually which is screening as part of our Selfhood Stories strand. She tells us about balancing the three stories in the film, how mainstream media should improve the representation of disabled people, and what she is working on now.
Tell us about yourself and the work you do
ZHG: I'm a Writer/Director working across theatre, fiction film and documentary. My work's been broadcast on the BBC, programmed at the BFI & the Barbican and performed at theatres such as the Arcola and New Diorama. Interested in vulnerability, the stories I tell are usually character-driven and naturalistic in tone. I love the space between documentary and fiction, emotional truth is what I want from my work.
My most recent project is a thirty minute creative documentary, Our Fathers which I wrote & directed with Kieran Hennigan. The film tells the story of two Nigerian priests sent to the depths of the Scottish Highlands on a mission, it was commissioned by the BBC & the SDI and premiered at the Glasgow Film Festival — and you can watch it on BBC iPlayer now!
Theatre wise, my first play, Cecilia, told the story of a family & their experience with anorexia. It was produced at the Kings Head and shortlisted for the Yale Drama Prize. Gap in the Light, my collaboration with Engineer Theatre exploring fear, was Off-West-End nominated, and my play Laird about class and Scotland was shortlisted for production by the Traverse Theatre and long-listed for Theatre 503's International Playwriting award. I've been part of numerous writers residencies, most recently the Soho Writers Programme, and I'm currently a BAFTA x BFI Writer/Director.
What is your proudest moment of your career so far?
ZHG: This is difficult! There have been a couple.
On ill, actually, after shooting with Bella she sent me a text thanking me for telling her story: saying that shooting with us had been one of the best days of her life. That felt pretty amazing.
After the first night of my play, Cecilia, I heard someone talk about her niece's anorexia to a friend, saying it was the first time she'd understood what her sister might be going through. That also felt pretty good!
And on the set of my first, no budget, fiction shoot watching amazing actresses Rosie Gray and Lauren Lyle work their magic at 3am on an empty street — I felt incredibly lucky, and grateful. Actors are total wizards.
How did you come to find the three subjects of the documentary?
ZHG: With a lot of research & time. We were lucky enough to get a production company, Knickerbockerglory, on board in the original form of the film — which we were originally wanting to pitch to Channel 4. They didn't want it, safe to say, but having Knickers attached meant that we could approach charities and other institutions who have huge networks of people with chronic illnesses and have the backing of something "proper" behind us. We got Knickers on board because I'd worked some early TV jobs with them & Jonathan, the MD, is a legend who supports emerging filmmakers — anyone who's got a telly doc idea, get in touch with him. He's a proper good egg.
Once we'd done some serious hunting through charities we had a million phone calls, me and Celestine, with loads of different people over a course of two years — and logged them all in an Excel. I kind of thought that the film was dead after C4 and BBC3 both said no, but Celestine applied for the BFI & BBC scheme and when we got that we went back to our Excel and bombarded all the emails again with a new idea, which was more internet focused. Bella came through that process. Ben and Jameisha, though, came through Celestine & me also trawling through all the influencers we knew and followed online who were part of the spoonie community already. And I just DM'ed them, and they were down!
They all have such rich stories to tell, was it hard trying to balance that into one short film?
ZHG: Yes! And I can't tell you, we had so many more. This is a community that needs to be listened to, and there are stories absolutely everywhere. We could've made a feature. Genuinely. But we didn't have the £££. It was difficult trying to balance it into one short film, and my editor — Hannah Renton, who's brilliant — was a massive help in getting the film to a place with a coherent story. I think that once I'd realised I was interested in this idea of how they each used the internet to hide or not to hide their illness we were onto something...
And, on whether there's an onus / responsibility to be authentic online — do we need to be vulnerable online if we want to change online culture? Or is that just a really tall order? I'm always interested in that question of how honest we can be about really bad stuff, and online people hide shit more than in real life — so that's what the film, I think, perhaps became about?
What do you think mainstream media needs to do to better represent disabled people, particularly those with hidden disabilities?
ZHG: As an abled person: LISTEN. Just LISTEN to disabled people and people with chronic illness. Actually hold space and shut up and listen. See if you can put your own fears, of mortality, of becoming ill yourself, all that stuff, aside and engage with what you're being told.
As Bella says, though I don't think it made the final film, disabled people don't want to be held up as heroes — saying "oh wow I could never deal with what you deal with" is simply not helpful. If you got ill yourself, you'd have to deal with it, and can you sit with that thought for a bit and listen to the person in front of you who is dealing with it on a daily basis?
In terms of those disabilities being hidden: listen and believe people! From a filmmaking perspective, and I'm sure Celestine has loads to say on this, the film industry needs to wake up and actually put its money where its mouth is. There's a lot of chat about diversity and supporting disabled filmmakers but, from my perspective, the money and time simply isn't there. Disabled filmmakers have different needs to abled ones — they need more time to make work, more money and ultimately that needs to be a given — not an ask. It needs to be straight up delivered to them.
What three things do you always have on your bedside table?
ZHG: Always? I don't know! At the moment I've got the brilliant book London and the South East by David Szalay, some lip balm & a notebook. I guess I pretty much always have a notebook there, though, that's true.
Can you talk a bit about your experience of being commissioned to make the film as part of the BBC and BFI's Born Digital scheme?
ZHG: Sure. So being commissioned to make it was quite simple — we sent in a pitch, we had loads of material from previously trying to pitch down a more telly route and so we (Celestine, mainly) got together a pitch and sent it off. We then had a lovely interview with lots of awesome women, which was a shock — love women, was expecting men — and got commissioned! Production-wise it was a totally mad experience, because the turnaround was so short and we were working with contributors who have a range of really important health needs — and Celestine herself has a chronic illness, so there was lots to juggle. But that's a different question!
What themes do you want to explore in your future work?
ZHG: Making ill, actually as an abled person was a real wake up, and I'm incredibly interested in continuing to tell stories about disability and chronic illness. I tell stories that I hope allow an audience to talk and feel things they might avoid in daily interactions — grief, illness, death, the big stuff! — and I imagine my work will continue to explore those themes. That said, I hope my work is also a bit funny sometimes!
Tell us three things you're grateful for?
ZHG: My health, the Brainchild Festival community & my absolute 100% cheerleader of a best friend — who's also a great poet, shout out to Sophie.
What are you working on at the moment/next?
ZHG: I'm currently working on a new fiction short exploring how chronic illness impacts relationships, and a new play looking at female friendship and the shit we can't tell the people we love — fun stuff! I'm working with the awesome Tamar Saphra (theatre director) on the play.
