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00:14Hello, Sophie Hyde is one of Australia's most successful film directors, working to
00:21great acclaim on international movies with award-winning actors.
00:25Her latest feature is her most personal yet, born out of her unconventional childhood
00:32in 1970s Adelaide. For Sophie and her family, making this film
00:37has helped release them from the secrets of the past.
00:45So we have these which are like nice woolen black pants, they're very very long, and then I thought
00:52I could wear your jacket. I think every time you put a film out into the world there is some
00:56trepidation around it because you're exposing something about yourself. This bit will tuck in.
01:02Releasing Jim Pa has been a more extreme version of that because it's so connected to our lives.
01:09They're cool but they're so similar to the film. I just don't know how similar you want to go here.
01:14Jim Pa has its Australian premiere at Adelaide Film Festival.
01:17It's so nerve-racking to bring it to my hometown and to bring it to our families.
01:23That's nice but I've worn it so many times now. I wore it as Sundance and then I wore it
01:27in
01:27Frameline. I think the film is really interrogating parent-child dynamics. It's become a real exploration
01:34of three generations of family. They have these kind of more diamond-y kind of ones from Jim.
01:39Oh we could wear a Jim thing. Yeah. It is very strange to have a film made about the father
01:48of
01:49my children. It's probably information that I would normally keep to myself.
01:57I'm sure my mum felt judged and she probably still does. I think she was nervous about the film coming
02:04out because she said to me suddenly like I have not really talked about this with lots of my friends.
02:10Is this his? Looks like it would have been. It's taken a long time for me to be like completely
02:15open
02:16about my family. But the more that you make something a secret the more shameful it is.
02:22Yeah nice. That is really nice isn't it? The great thing I think about the choices
02:27that my family made was to not stay inside those secrets.
02:42So Adelaide premiere. I just want to focus on like the idea that they're here,
02:47like the crew's here, the cast is here, the family. It's exciting and somewhat terrifying.
02:52It's like there's not that many Australian female directors who have made as many films as Sophie.
03:00Mum!
03:0352 Tuesdays won a Crystal Bear in Berlin and a director's award in Sundance.
03:10So do I call you dad now? And after that she did Animals in Dublin.
03:14We are going deep tonight. And then good luck to you Leo Grand in the UK.
03:20Yes. Interestingly Emma Thompson got quite a number of awards for that role including
03:28Best Orgasm. I've never done anything interesting in my life.
03:33It's no mean feat to be based in Adelaide and to be working with Oscar winning actors.
03:41These are all for you. What? I'm bequeathing them to you.
03:45We cast Olivia Colman and we cast John Lithgow in Gympaar.
03:49There's an archive you can donate them to.
03:50Yes, but they're for you. I don't think I've ever worked with a director who
03:54includes people, embraces people and connects them with each other so quickly and so warmly.
04:05I'm a bit of a like intimacy junkie I think. Like I love that bit of getting into the room
04:11with an actor
04:11where you're really like dropping all of the pretense, talking about stuff, being in the stuff.
04:17I just don't know if I can burden a friend with a dying dog.
04:21Sophie was the main reason I wanted to be part of Gympaar. I'd worked with a director that wasn't
04:25very good with actors and suddenly met Sophie and went, oh heaven.
04:30I'm just not sure we can say goodbye that fast and get on a plane.
04:34I don't find myself particularly interesting. So it's funny that I've got a film where the sort
04:39of central character is a version of me. Who else has a key to the apartment? No one.
04:44Gympaar is as autobiographical as a film can be. And Sophie has made the bold move of having her own
04:52child play her own child. How strange was it being directed by your own mother?
04:58Oh it's interesting. I think not that strange. In some ways I was raised to do it. Do that thing
05:04where you have to look to every camera. Right on the right. She wants people to connect with her work
05:09because it disarms them and it opens them up to feelings that they usually hide.
05:21Okay look at this one. What do you think? Sophie has been very clear about making a film
05:31about Gympaar. He always had his top off. And has involved us enough to feel comfortable
05:38with the story being told. So cute. You are adorable.
05:44We have spent a lot of time talking about our family and remembering and sharing stories.
05:51Which has been really lovely and quite heartbreaking at times.
05:55We replicate some of these moments in the film. That's one of those that's our reference.
05:59That white linen suit. So good. It has helped me reflect on a time that was very important
06:08in my life. When I started a family with Jim. Keep cutting. We were so young when we met.
06:18We lived at home still. So it was almost we got married was our only way of actually being able
06:25to
06:26to move out of home. Well you were a baby. Yeah and a baby. I reckon two years old.
06:32We had Alice in 1975 and then Sophie in 1977. So tiny. Yeah.
06:40When Sophie was 13 months old Jim came out to me and it was a very sudden moment and
06:52it was quite devastating in fact. I wasn't surprised that Jim found men attractive.
07:03And he had probably mentioned that along the way. But what I was devastated by was
07:12that he had been trying it out secretly. I think this picture is just after Jim came out to me.
07:24I'm smiling in the photo but I remember that I wasn't smiling underneath.
07:30I felt betrayed. I was very angry and very, very upset.
07:42That moment that he told me that he was gay was when I was still breastfeeding
07:57I couldn't continue. But it felt like I was abandoning you.
08:14It just just illustrates just how devastating it was.
08:22It would have been quite normal in those days for mum to have just left and taken us with him
08:29or just
08:30kicked him out of the house and refused to allow him to be part of our lives. But she's not
08:35like
08:36that. We chose to have a family and neither of us wanted that to be the end of our relationship.
08:48When you love someone, you know, you don't just hate them if things change. We talked through
09:00the possibility of staying together until I could be independent.
09:09You lived together for a long time afterwards.
09:12Yes.
09:12So even in that heartbreak, you then continued on to make decisions that
09:16benefited all of us as a family.
09:19Yes.
09:20It must have been really difficult for Christine. She certainly didn't show that to us.
09:25Maybe not with us.
09:26They both did everything they could to keep a stable family home.
09:31It's so cute.
09:32Opinion in South Australia is being polarised as never before over homosexual reform legislation.
09:38Some people have come to accept homosexuals, but total acceptance is a long way off.
09:43To come out as a homosexual means you'll lose your job, your family will throw you out,
09:48you know, your friends won't want to know you anymore.
09:51It was dangerous to be a homosexual at that time.
09:56Most gay men had experienced a time when it was illegal and therefore they were closeted.
10:08We never hid it from the girls, even when they were very young.
10:13But we were very careful about who knew.
10:17We told family about it and very selective in terms of friends.
10:27When I was growing up, my family felt really unusual.
10:31I didn't know who to tell about my dad being gay.
10:35It was something that I felt I had to have my own coming out about with various people,
10:40especially when I was little.
10:42I remember walking around the playground and saying to a friend, like,
10:46I just, you know, I've got to tell you something.
10:48My dad's gay.
10:50And then being like, what?
10:53My parents lived together for some time and they were in a relationship with each other,
10:57as well as exploring other relationships, from what I understand.
11:01Sophie was seven years old when we separated.
11:05We had agreed to co-parent.
11:09They lived in two different houses, but we shared our time between the two of them.
11:13And I always felt very loved and very looked after by both of them.
11:22When I was 13, my dad moved to Melbourne for work.
11:27And that was hard.
11:29Like, I remember being very upset that he wasn't in our lives so much.
11:34When Jim went to Melbourne, he was able to live a more openly gay life.
11:41That was a relief for me because it was interstate.
11:47Jim came to Melbourne in 1990 to take up a job as General Manager of Victorian AIDS Council.
11:54And I was on his selection panel and I thought, well, he's going to be a firecracker.
12:02People loved or hated Jim. He could be quite polarising.
12:06There is no point in us providing services for people once they are ill,
12:12if we don't have services which prevent them in the first place from contracting the virus.
12:18He was very opinionated. He always had very clear ideas on right and wrong and how things should be.
12:28Nineties were a very difficult time in HIV. You know, lots of deaths, no good treatments.
12:36And we needed someone with strength. And, you know, that's one thing Jim did have.
12:41Jim made a big noise for us.
12:44Some people were not getting tested at all.
12:47Oh, it's absolutely a dangerous situation.
12:50In the gay community, so many men were dying.
12:54And I went to, I think, like 15 funerals in the first year that I lived with Jim in Melbourne.
13:02In about 1992, Jim drove over to Adelaide and met up with me and Soph.
13:13And it was obvious he had something to tell us.
13:17He came and told me and my mum together that he was HIV positive.
13:23It was actually just here, but we had a different table.
13:26Were you cross with him?
13:30Yes, and the girls were too. It's like, what an idiot.
13:39It was really shocking for me that this person who was so adamant about staying safe was HIV positive.
13:47I did feel disillusioned. I felt like, gosh, you've been teaching me one thing and you've gone and done something
13:52else.
13:53That felt irresponsible, for want of a better word.
14:00Mostly, though, I was just sad. I was just upset that he would die.
14:05Because that's what was happening. Everyone was dying.
14:09When he became HIV positive, my parents made a choice that maybe,
14:14don't tell everyone about this for whatever reason.
14:17And so again, it becomes a little bit of a secret.
14:19It's just a secret for it.
14:20We go from the beginning of that scene through to, oh, that too. Look, that's all one shot.
14:28Growing up, I always knew I wanted to work with a group of people and make things.
14:32Went to university, really fell in love with film.
14:36Sophie and I studied at the same university and we met properly on a film set.
14:43Yeah, I should.
14:44Brian was a cinematographer and editor and he was making these amazing skate videos.
14:49Let's see where our car is.
14:50If you guys start at the bin beyond that.
14:53Sophie and I started working together on short films, documentaries, music videos.
15:00And then feelings developed.
15:03So not that they weren't there before, but we had a really tight friendship
15:07and a really great working relationship.
15:09And then that blossomed into a partnership.
15:15What do you want to look at next?
15:16Then we just were like all in.
15:18We were like, let's move in together.
15:20Let's start a business.
15:21Let's try and buy a house.
15:23Let's have a baby.
15:24I'm going to let the rest of that come from a fine cut.
15:27So I'll start there.
15:28I never thought my dad would meet a child that I had.
15:31Like, I definitely didn't think he would have that.
15:34And he didn't.
15:35The expectation was, was that he was going to get sick and die.
15:39In five years.
15:40Yeah.
15:41But he didn't.
15:44The drugs turned up.
15:46And so people with HIV started to live.
15:49And then he survived.
15:53So to have had him there when Ord was born was kind of amazing.
15:57And I think he felt that as well.
16:02When Ord came along in 2005, Soph and I were just, you know, obsessively working on films
16:09till two in the morning in the edit suite and days and days on end.
16:13Hi, this is my tour of closer production.
16:16This is the backyard studio in our backyard studio.
16:19There was always people here.
16:21There was always cameras out.
16:22There was always making another art piece of some sort.
16:25Matt and Dad, or Brian.
16:28So it didn't seem like an unusual step for Ord to start being in the films.
16:38Ord came very much into this world as themselves.
16:43So much of who they are was already there.
16:48I went out into the world as a very masculine presenting little girl at first and was received
16:55as such by everyone.
16:58There was always this sense of like, oh, something's a little off with that one.
17:01You know, whether that came out in a really awful way or whether that was just a bit more like,
17:06so what's your deal?
17:14Despite, yeah, having this family that showed me very many different ways to be a woman,
17:19I have just never been a woman.
17:21So it's really as simple as that.
17:24But never felt like a man either.
17:26Yeah, that's right.
17:27Yeah.
17:28What can I say?
17:29I exist outside the gender binary.
17:31Yeah, because you said to me recently that you didn't know if Jim knew that you were queer.
17:36And I'm like, oh, he knew.
17:38And he even said to me, you know, they're going to need you to be around for them.
17:43I think my dad and the experience that I went through with him
17:47means that I didn't have an idea of how someone was supposed to be.
17:52I got to come into being a parent going, who is this?
17:56Who's this person?
17:57And Ord responded by going, me, I'm me.
18:01I wonder if you can bring in that thing of your not knowing what Jim knew about you.
18:04I would be happy to and I don't know how well it will fit in.
18:08I think Jim's coming out and life as a public figure who was openly gay
18:13has had a huge impact on the way my family operates.
18:17And I think it's something that that mum has absolutely carried through into her work as well.
18:21So I really need a new costume now.
18:24Well, I'm sure we can find the perfect replacement for a magical little man such as yourself.
18:28Little woman.
18:29Sorry?
18:31We made a mini-series called Fucking Adelaide for ABC that I was in.
18:35And my character's story in that was centred around gender and my non-binary identity at the
18:44time which I would say was kind of burgeoning, you know.
18:48Cleo is not a little man, she's a little woman.
18:52Oh, I'm so sorry.
18:55Is there something that makes me look particularly like a boy?
19:03Hey, the greatest magicians always keep their audiences guessing.
19:12I wonder what you first think when you see me.
19:15If we're talking biology, I'm female.
19:17But I feel that it's more complex than that.
19:20Being 12 and getting on a stage in front of a thousand people at the TEDx convention
19:25was incredibly nerve-wracking.
19:27I look at it now and I think, my God, I came out to a thousand people on a stage
19:32at 12 years old.
19:33I'm going to take a second to pose a question to you.
19:36Why does it matter to you whether I am a boy or a girl?
19:39I think the way that Jim lived his life, how openly he lived his life,
19:44set a culture in the family that allowed me to be who I was, who I am.
19:49As a trans person, the issues I've had is a lot of hate speech.
19:54And it's a real problem online.
19:57I'm so in awe of Aud's ability to be that role model, to be that spokesperson.
20:02But it doesn't come without its collateral damage.
20:06When Aud was on youth Q&A, they got death threats and like so much hatred.
20:12A lot of people deciding they wouldn't watch the show,
20:15purely because I was a trans person who's here on the show.
20:20That's right, it's their loss.
20:21Jim was very proud of Aud.
20:24And when he discovered that they would be non-binary, he thought, well, this is going to be a game
20:32changer.
20:33They would be somebody that people would learn from.
20:39Jim and I remained very close.
20:43Our relationship was like brother and sister.
20:46In 2013, he was really in such a vivacious, very brilliant place.
20:52Like he was the director of public health in Victoria.
20:55He felt like the most energetic person.
21:01So when he had his stroke, it came as a shock.
21:05To see this person who had such a big personality in a hospital environment where you're just treated like an
21:14old person or a sick person.
21:17Really, I found that very shocking.
21:21Eight years later, there was another stroke.
21:24And this time, it was really bad.
21:29He couldn't speak, he couldn't open his eyes, so he couldn't see anyone.
21:33But we came to realise he could still squeeze our hands in response to what we were saying and asking.
21:41We worked out that if you squeeze once was no and twice was yes.
21:47We asked him questions about whether or not he wanted to come off the life support
21:51and whether he wanted to have any resuscitation after that.
21:57And he chose not to, yeah.
22:02I remember in the hospital room really noticing all these small details about the way his tattoos
22:07had the needles in through them and the way he looked slumped in the bed.
22:13And thinking, you should remember these things.
22:16This is something for you to make something with.
22:20Professor Jim Hyde died in August. He was a stirrer, an activist, incredibly intelligent.
22:25He leaves behind his daughters Sophie and Alice and their families,
22:28and an Australia that is fairer, more loving and more compassionate.
22:33It was devastating for me, for all of us, for the whole family.
22:38I shut down my whole life. It felt like I'd fallen apart, yeah.
22:46I was 12 years old when Jim died. I don't think I had reckoned with his career or his professional
22:55life
22:55until his funeral. And I remember sitting and listening to people talking about Jim
22:59and realising the full range of who he was as a human, away from being my grandfather.
23:09Francis tells a story about Jim Parr.
23:13Yeah, my hero.
23:14My hero.
23:15Yep, that's in.
23:16Should I put them up?
23:17Yeah.
23:18A year after Jim had died, Sophie came to me with an idea for a film.
23:24So all of those ideas are there, but we don't use them in that scene necessarily.
23:29Jim's death and the process of him dying was kind of at the forefront of why Sophie wanted to make
23:36this film.
23:37Just because he's in hospital doesn't mean you have to humour him.
23:40But is he in hospital by this point?
23:42Sophie wrote it with Matthew, and I think it was Sophie's way of processing grief around Dad dying.
23:50So, like, I had a breakdown and she wrote a film.
23:54Is he there for his family or is he there for other people?
24:00You're good?
24:02Jim Parr is a film about a film director, Hannah,
24:05who takes her non-binary teenager, Francis, to visit their grandfather, Jim, or Jim Parr,
24:10an eccentric gay man in Amsterdam.
24:13I want to live with Jim Parr for a bit.
24:15It's a three-way conversation between grandfather, mother and child.
24:20But you asked me to talk about it.
24:22I feel like I need to give him...
24:23The impetus to make Jim Parr the film was imagining what the conversation,
24:28the relationship between Jim and Ord would be like now.
24:35Now that Ord has grown into themselves even more.
24:39Where would they see eye to eye?
24:41Where would there be conflict?
24:43The benefits of who we are is you can't assume anything about anyone.
24:48I wish that my dad could give Ord some advice about how it is to be this way.
24:53That longing was the thing that made me want to write the film.
25:04In reality, Jim only moved to Melbourne, but in the film,
25:09we decided to make Jim live in Amsterdam.
25:12It's a bigger decision. There's a lot more at stake.
25:15Oh, it's the celebrity children! Come here, come here.
25:19Jim had a big personality. When John Lithgow came on to play Jim, he really wanted to embrace that.
25:27My glorious grand thing!
25:30He was like, okay, let's get the tats on, let's get the nipple piercings in.
25:34This is Francis!
25:37My Francis!
25:38He's a deeply serious character and a completely outrageous character.
25:43One of those young people who suddenly has no gender for some reason.
25:50He's a man with great charm and wit and daring who could really be infuriating,
25:58as is so often the case with people who are so out there,
26:02so unedited and direct in their personal relationships.
26:07There's no such thing as bisexuality.
26:10No!
26:11Okay, maybe tone it down a bit.
26:13Tone what down?
26:14Well, I'm just trying to talk about these things openly.
26:16I play Francis in Jim Pye, and in many ways, Francis is a sort of fictional, younger version of myself.
26:23You can't be straight with a dash of gayness.
26:25He's just being provocative for the sake of it.
26:27Francis has an idea of him as a kind of perfect figure, a perfect heroic,
26:32gay figure.
26:33And what they meet when they get to Amsterdam is somebody who is more difficult than that.
26:37And by they, do you mean plural or singular?
26:40Working with Odd was effortless.
26:43It took me forever getting the pronouns right.
26:47But Odd was so completely knew who they were.
26:53I was already in love with acting before I did the film,
26:55but I fell more in love with acting, working with Olivia and working with John.
26:59And I'm not a woman, Mum.
27:01Why didn't you point that out to Jim Pye?
27:03It's a challenging thing to work with your family.
27:05It's particularly a challenging thing to work with your family on a film that is kind of about your family.
27:11But we also, I think, were strengthened by it.
27:15And the making of the film is a really special time for Mum and I.
27:25I'm very excited. We're at the Capri Theatre here in Adelaide and we are opening the Adelaide Film Festival.
27:32We've been making this film for a long time as a family and so it means a lot to bring
27:36it home.
27:39I'm quite nervous about when the film is shown to all my friends in Adelaide because it is so personal.
27:49At times I've felt really raw.
27:52Like, oh my God, I can't believe I said all this.
27:55I can't believe I showed all of this.
27:57I can't believe how vulnerable we've been.
27:59I can't believe I let my family be in all of this.
28:03We made this film with our hands on our hearts.
28:06I'm especially thinking of my dad, Jim, or Jim Pa, and wishing that he was here with us tonight.
28:12But I'm very happy that my mum, Christine, is here.
28:15I hope you enjoy this film. I'll see you afterwards.
28:21Hello, Frances. I'm Jim Pa.
28:26I found it very emotional to watch my life.
28:35He married my grandmother, Catherine.
28:38It triggered a depth of emotion that I can't explain, yeah.
28:44Right after my mum was born, Jim Pa came out as gay.
28:48She chose to stay in partnership with him to raise us.
28:53I find that an amazing thing that she did, and her story is really deeply in the film.
28:59I feel that I'm opening up about things that I never have talked about before, and people have been interested,
29:08and it's a surprise.
29:10When I was Frances' age, I didn't even have the word to describe it.
29:15The gift I was given by my dad was to show that you could live as your full,
29:19true self in the world and not have to reject parts of your life.
29:23Frances has all the words.
29:26My dad has been that person, and now my child is as well.
29:30And they show us a way to live and be that is very beautiful.
29:36You're my hero.
29:37I think the biggest takeaway for me, having grown up with Jim as my grandpa and my mum as who
29:42she is,
29:42is that by being our most authentic selves, we give people around us the opportunity to love us fully.
30:03Oh, five.
30:15Oh, five.
30:22Too amazing.
30:26You
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