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Australian.Story.S31E03
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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.
00:26Her 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 has helped release them from
00:39the secrets of the past.
00:46So we have these, which are like nice woolen black pants. They're very, very long. And
00:51then I thought I could wear your jacket.
00:53I think every time you put a film out into the world, there is some trepidation around
00:58it because you're exposing something about yourself. This bit will tuck in. Releasing Jim
01:03Pa has been a more extreme version of that because it's so connected to our lives. Like,
01:09they're cool, but they're so similar to the film. I just don't know how similar you want
01:13to go here. Jim Pa has its Australian premiere at Adelaide Film Festival. It's so nerve wracking
01:19to bring it to my hometown and to bring it to our families. That's nice, but I've worn
01:24it so many times now. I wore it as Sundance and then I wore it in Frameline. I think the
01:29film is really interrogating parent-child dynamics. It's become a real exploration of three generations
01:36family. I have these kind of more diamond-y kind of ones from Jim. Oh, we could wear a Jim
01:41thing.
01:41Yeah. It is very strange to have a film made about the father of my children. It's probably information
01:52that I would normally keep to myself. I'm sure my mum felt judged and she probably still does.
02:02I think she was nervous about the film coming out because she said to me suddenly, like, I have not
02:08really talked about this with lots of my friends. Is this his? Looks like it would have been. It's taken
02:14a long
02:14time for me to be, like, completely open about my family. But the more that you make something a secret,
02:21the more shameful it is. Yeah, nice. That is really nice, isn't it? The great thing, I think,
02:26about the choices that 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, like,
02:47that the crew's here, the cast is here, the family. It's exciting and somewhat terrifying.
02:54There's not that many Australian female directors who have made as many films as Sophie.
03:01Mum! 52 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. Yes.
03:23Interestingly, Emma Thompson got quite a number of awards for that role, including Best Orgasm.
03:29I've never done anything interesting in my life.
03:34It'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 Jim Parr. There'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 includes people,
03:56people, embraces people and connects them with each other so quickly and so warmly.
04:04Yeah, we love it.
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 Jim Parr. 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 of
04:39central character is a version of me. Who else has a key to the apartment?
04:43No one. Jim Parr is as autobiographical as a film can be. And Sophie has made the bold move of
04:51having
04:51her own child play her own child. How strange was it being directed by your own mother? Oh, it's
04:59interesting. I think, uh, not that strange. In some ways I was raised to do it. Do that thing where
05:04you 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?
05:26Sophie has been very clear about making a film about Jim Parr and has involved us enough to feel
05:37comfortable with 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,
05:51um, which 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.
05:59Yeah, yeah. That white linen suit.
06:01Yeah, so this. Oh, so good. Is it?
06:03It has helped me reflect on a time that was very important in my life. Yeah.
06:10When I started a family, uh, well, with Jim. Keep cutting. We were so young when we met.
06:18We lived at home still. Um, so it was almost, we got married was our only way of actually being
06:25able to move out of home. Well, you were a baby. Yeah. I reckon two years old.
06:32We had Alice in 1975 and then Sophie in 1977. So tiny. Yeah. When Sophie was 13 months old,
06:44Jim came out to me. Um, it was a very sudden, um, moment and, um, it was quite devastating in
06:56fact.
06:58I wasn't surprised that Jim found men attractive and he, he had probably mentioned that, um, along the way.
07:08But what I was devastated by was that he had been trying it out, um, secretly.
07:18Oh, I think this picture is just after, um, Jim came out to me. I'm smiling in the photo,
07:26but, um, I remember that I wasn't smiling underneath. I felt betrayed. Um, I was very angry and, um,
07:39very, very upset. That moment that he told me that he was gay, um, was when I was still breastfeeding
07:53you, Sophie. And I suddenly stopped breastfeeding. I couldn't continue. But it felt like, um,
08:15just, just, just illustrates just how devastating it was. It would have been quite normal in those days for Mum
08:27to have just left and taken us with them or just kicked him out of the house and refused to
08:33allow him to be part of the house.
08:34And I was like, um, she's a part of our lives, but she's not like that.
08:37We chose to have a family and neither of us wanted that to be the end of our relationship.
08:46When, when, when you love someone, you know, you, you, you don't just hate them if things change.
08:58We've talked through the possibility of staying together until I could be independent.
09:09Do you live together for a long time afterwards? Yes.
09:12So even in that heartbreak, you then continued on to make decisions that benefited all of us as a family.
09:19Yes. It must have been really difficult for Christine. She certainly didn't show that to us.
09:25Maybe not with the... They both did everything they could to keep a stable family home.
09:31So cute.
09:33Opinion 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.
09:46Your family will throw you out, you know, your friends won't want to know you anymore.
09:52It was dangerous to be a homosexual at that time.
09:56Most gay men had experienced a time when they, it was illegal and therefore they were closeted.
10:08We never hid it from the girls, even when they were very young, but we were very careful about who
10:16knew.
10:17We told family about it and very selective in terms of friends.
10:27When I was growing up, my family felt really unusual.
10:32I 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'm going 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.
11:02Sophie 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.
11:55And 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.
12:20He always had very clear ideas on right and wrong and how things should be.
12:29Nineties were a very difficult time in HIV.
12:32You know, lots of deaths, no good treatments.
12:36And we needed someone with strength.
12:38And, you know, that's one thing Jim did have.
12:41And Jim made a big noise for us.
12:44Some people are not getting tested at all.
12:47So it's absolutely a dangerous situation.
12:50In the gay community, so many men were dying.
12:53And 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.
13:23He was actually just here.
13:24But we had a different table.
13:26Were you cross with him?
13:30Yes, and the girls were too.
13:33It'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.
13:48I felt like, gosh, you've been teaching me one thing and you've gone and done something else.
13:53That felt irresponsible, for want of a better word.
14:00Mostly, though, I was just sad.
14:02I was just upset that he would die.
14:05Because that's what was happening.
14:06Everyone was dying.
14:10When he became HIV positive, my parents made a choice that maybe don't tell everyone about this
14:15for whatever reason.
14:17And so again, it becomes a little bit of a secret.
14:21We go from the beginning of that scene through to, oh, that too.
14:25Look, that's all.
14:26Yeah, we could put that in.
14:27That's all one chunk.
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.
14:44Brian was a cinematographer and editor and he was making these amazing skate videos.
14:48I'd like to see where our car is.
14:50Yeah.
14:51If 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 it's not that they weren't there before, but we had a really tight friendship and a really great
15:08working relationship.
15:10And 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 it come from a fine cut.
15:27So I'll start there.
15:28But we can go.
15:29I never thought my dad would meet a child that I had.
15:32Like, I definitely didn't think he would have that.
15:34And he didn't.
15:36The expectation was, was that he was going to get sick and die in five years.
15:40Yeah, but he didn't.
15:44The drugs turned up and so people with HIV started to live and 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.
16:19There was always people here.
16:21There was always cameras out.
16:22There was always making another art piece of some sort.
16:26Matt 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
16:54and was received as such by everyone.
16:58There was always this sense of like, oh, something's a little off with that one.
17:02You 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?
17:15Despite, yeah, having this family that showed me very many different ways to be a woman,
17:19I have just never been a woman.
17:20So 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.
17:32Yeah, 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.
17:39And he even said to me, you know, they're going to need you to be around for them.
17:43Like, I think my dad and the experience that I went through with him means that I didn't have an
17:49idea of how someone was supposed to be.
17:52I got to come in to being a parent going, who is this?
17:56Who's this person?
17:58And Aud 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.
18:05I 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 has had a huge impact
18:14on 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.
18:30Sorry?
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 time,
18:45which I would say was kind of burgeoning, you know.
18:49Cleo is not a little man.
18:50She'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 1,000 people at the TEDx convention was incredibly nerve
19:26-wracking.
19:27I look at it now and I think, my God, I came out to 1,000 people on a stage
19:32at 12 years old.
19:33I'm going to take a second to pose a question to you. Why does it matter to you whether I
19:38am a boy or a girl?
19:40I think the way that Jim lived his life, how openly he lived his life,
19:45set 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.
19:56I'm so in awe of Ord's ability to be that role model, to be that spokesperson.
20:02But it doesn't come without its collateral damage.
20:06When Ord was on youth Q&A, they got death threats and like so much hatred.
20:13A 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 Ord. When he discovered that they would be non-binary, he thought,
20:30well, this is going to be a game changer. They would be somebody that people would learn from.
20:39Jim and I remained very close. Our 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.
21:06To see this person who had such a big personality
21:09in a hospital environment where you're just treated like an old person or a sick person,
21:17really, I found that very shocking.
21:21Eight years later, there was another stroke. And this time, it was really bad.
21:29He couldn't speak, he couldn't open his eyes, so he couldn't see anyone. But we came to realise he
21:35that 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.
21:46We asked him questions about whether or not he wanted to come off the life support and whether
21:53he wanted to have any resuscitation after that. And he chose not to.
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 and thinking,
22:14you should remember these things. This 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 and an Australia that is
22:29fairer, 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 until his funeral. And I remember sitting and listening to people talking about Jim
23:00and realising the full range of who he was as a human, away from being my grandfather.
23:10Francis tells a story about Jim Parr. Yep. My hero. My hero. Yep. That's in.
23:16Should I put them up? Yeah. A year after Jim had died, Sophie came to me with an idea for
23:24a 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, um, why Sophie wanted to
23:36make this film. Just because he's in hospital doesn't mean you have to humour him.
23:40But is he in hospital by this point? Sophie wrote it with Matthew and I think it was Sophie's way
23:46of
23:47processing grief around dad dying. So, like, I had a breakdown and she wrote a film.
23:54Is he there for his family or is there there for other people?
24:00We're good? Yeah. Jim Parr is a film about a film director, Hannah, who takes her non-binary
24:06teenager, Francis, to visit their grandfather, Jim, or Jim Parr, an eccentric gay man in Amsterdam.
24:13I want to live with Jim Parr for a bit. It's a three-way conversation between grandfather,
24:19mother and child. But you asked me to talk about it.
24:22The impetus to make Jim Parr the film was imagining what the conversation and the relationship
24:29between Jim and Ord would be like now. Now that Ord has grown into their themselves even more.
24:39Where would they see eye to eye? Where 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, we decided to make
25:11Jim live in Amsterdam. It's a bigger decision. There's a lot more at stake.
25:15It's the celebrity children. Come here, come here. Jim had a big personality.
25:22When John Lithgow came on to play Jim, he really wanted to embrace that.
25:27My glorious grand thing. He was like, okay, let's get the tats on. Let's get the nipple piercings in.
25:34This is Francis. Hi, 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, so unedited and direct in their personal
26:06relationships. There's no such thing as bisexuality. No.
26:11Okay, maybe tone it down a bit. Tone what down? Well, I'm just trying to talk about these things openly.
26:16I play Francis in Jim Parr 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. He'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,
26:31gay figure. And what they meet when they get to Amsterdam is somebody who is more difficult than that.
26:38And by they, do you mean plural or singular? Working with Aud was effortless.
26:43It took me forever getting the pronouns right. But Aud was so completely knew who they were.
26:53I was already in love with acting before I did the film, but I fell more in love with acting,
26:58working with Olivia and working with John. And I'm not a woman, Mum.
27:01Why didn't you point that out to Jim Parr? It'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
27:09family. But we also, I think, were strengthened by it. And the making of the film is a really special
27:17time 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, like, oh my god, I can't believe I said all this. I can't believe
27:56I showed
27:56all of this. I can't believe how vulnerable we've been. I can't believe I let my family be in all
28:02of this.
28:03We made this film with our hands on our hearts. I'm especially thinking of my dad, Jim, or Jim Parr,
28:09and wishing that he was here with us tonight. But 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 Parr.
28:26I found it very emotional to watch my life. He married my grandmother, Catherine.
28:38It triggered a depth of emotion that I can't explain, yeah. Right after my mum was born,
28:47Jim Parr came out as gay. She 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,
29:06and people have been interested, and 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 true self
29:20in the world,
29:21and not have to reject parts of your life.
29:23But Frances 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,
29:43is that by being our most authentic selves, we give people around us the opportunity to love us fully.
30:03Oh, five.
30:04Oh.
30:07Two, four.
30:15Oh!
30:16Oh!
30:21Oh!
30:22Oh!
30:23Too many!
30:25Oh!
30:26Oh!
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