- 18 hours ago
Australian Story - Season 31 Episode 03 Out in the Open
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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.
00:35For Sophie and her family, making this film has helped release them from the secrets of
00:40the 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
00:57it because you're exposing something about yourself, this but it will tuck in.
01:02Releasing Jim Pa has been a more extreme version of that because it's so connected to our lives.
01:08Like they're cool but they're so similar to the film, I just don't know how similar you
01:13want 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.
01:25I wore it as Sundance and then I wore it in Frameline.
01:28I think the film is really interrogating parent-child dynamics.
01:32It's become a real exploration of three generations of family.
01:36They have these kind of more diamond-y kind of ones from Jim.
01:40Oh, we could wear a Jim thing.
01:41Yeah.
01:43It is very strange to have a film made about the father of my children.
01:50It's probably information that I would normally keep to myself.
01:57I'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
02:08have not really talked about this with lots of my friends.
02:10Is this his?
02:11It looks like it would have been.
02:13It's taken a long time for me to be like completely open about my family.
02:17I like that.
02:18But the more that you make something a secret, the more shameful it is.
02:22What?
02:22Yeah, nice.
02:23That is really nice, isn't it?
02:25The great thing I think about the choices that my family made was to not stay inside those
02:30secrets.
02:41So, how did they premiere?
02:44I just want to focus on like the idea that they're here, like the crew is here, the cast
02:48is here, the family.
02:50It's exciting.
02:51And somewhat terrifying.
02:53It's like...
02:54There'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?
03:11After that, she did Animals in Dublin.
03:14We are going deep tonight.
03:17And then good luck to you, Leo Grand in the UK.
03:21Yes.
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.
03:33It's no mean feat to be based in Adelaide and to be working with Oscar-winning actors.
03:41These are all for you.
03:43What?
03:43I'm bequeathing them to you.
03:45We cast Olivia Colman, and we cast John Lithgow in Jim Parr.
03:49There's an archive you can donate them to?
03:50Yes, but they're for you.
03:52I don't think I've ever worked with a director who includes people, embraces people, and connects
03:58them with each other so quickly and so warmly.
04:03Yeah, we love her.
04:05I'm a bit of a, like, intimacy junkie, I think.
04:08Like, I love that bit of getting into the room with an actor, where you're really, like, dropping all of
04:14the 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.
04:24I'd worked with a director that wasn't very good with actors, and suddenly met Sophie and went,
04:29oh, 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.
04:37So it's funny that I've got a film where the sort of central character is a version of me.
04:41Who else has a key to the apartment?
04:43No one.
04:44Jim Parr is as autobiographical as a film can be.
04:48And Sophie has made the bold move of having her own child play her own child.
04:54How strange was it being directed by your own mother?
04:58Oh, it's interesting. I think, uh, not that strange.
05:01In some ways, I was raised to do it.
05:03Do that thing where you have to look to every camera.
05:05Yeah, right on the right.
05:06She wants people to connect with her work because it disarms them.
05:11And it opens them up to feelings that they usually hide.
05:21Okay, look at this one.
05:25What do you think?
05:26Sophie has been very clear about making a film about Jim Parr.
05:32He always had his top five.
05:33And has involved us enough to feel comfortable with the story being told.
05:40So 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.
05:58That's one of those that's our reference.
05:59Yeah, yeah. That white linen suit.
06:01Yeah, so this...
06:02Oh, so good.
06:02Is it?
06:03It has helped me reflect on a time that was very important in my life.
06:09Yeah.
06:10When I started a family, well, with Jim, we were so young when we met.
06:18We lived at home still.
06:20Um, so it was almost we got married was our only way of actually being able to move out of
06:26home.
06:27Well, you were a baby.
06:29Yeah.
06:30I reckon two years old.
06:32We had Alice in 1975 and then Sophie in 1977.
06:39So tiny.
06:40Yeah.
06:40When Sophie was 13 months old, Jim came out to me.
06:46Um, it was a very sudden, um, moment and, um, it was quite devastating in fact.
06:57I wasn't surprised that Jim found men attractive and he, he had probably mentioned that, um, along
07:07the way, but what I was devastated by was that he had been trying it out, um, secretly.
07:18Oh, I think, I think this picture is just after, um, Jim came out to me.
07:24I'm smiling in the photo, but, um, I remember that I wasn't smiling underneath.
07:30I felt betrayed, um, I was very angry and, um, very, very upset.
07:42That moment that he told me that he was gay, um, was when I was still breastfeeding you, Sophie.
07:54And I suddenly stopped breastfeeding.
07:59I couldn't continue.
08:01But it felt like, um, I was abandoning you.
08:14Just, just illustrates just how devastating it was.
08:21Oh.
08:22It would have been quite normal in those days for mum to have just left and taken us with them
08:29or just kicked him out of the house and refused to allow him to be part of our lives.
08:35But 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.
08:46Mm-hmm.
08:48When, when you love someone, you know, you, you don't just hate them if things change.
08:57We talked through the possibility of staying together until I could be independent.
09:09She lived together for a long time afterwards.
09:12Yes.
09:12So even in that heartbreak, you then continued on to make decisions that benefited all of
09:18us as a family.
09:19Yes.
09:20It must have been really difficult for Christine.
09:22She certainly didn't show that to us.
09:25Maybe not with the...
09:26They 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, your family will throw you out,
09:49you 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 they, 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'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.
11:01Sophie 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.
11:26And 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.
12:04He could be quite polarising.
12:06There is no point in us providing services for people once they are ill
12:11if 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.
12:28The 90s 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.
12:47Oh, 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.
13:12And 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.
14:04Because that's what was happening, everyone was dying.
14:10When he became HIV positive, my parents made a choice that maybe don't tell everyone about this for whatever reason.
14:17And so again, it becomes a little bit of a secret.
14:20Go from the beginning of that scene through to, oh, that too.
14:25Yeah, we could put that in.
14:27Growing 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.
14:48Let's 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, not that they weren't there before, but we had a really tight friendship and 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.
15:32Like, 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 in five years.
15:40Yeah.
15:41But he didn't.
15:44The drugs turned up and so people with HIV started to live.
15:50And then he survived.
15:53So to have had him there when Ord was born was kind of amazing.
15:58And 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 till two in
16:10the 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.
16:25Matt and dad, or Brian.
16:29So 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 as such
16:56by 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?
17:14Despite, yeah, having this family that showed me very many different ways to be a woman, I have just never
17:20been 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. What 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 means that I didn't have an idea
17:49of 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 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.
18:29Sorry?
18:31We made a miniseries 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, which I
18:45would say was kind of burgeoning, you know.
18:48Cleo is not a little man, she's a little woman.
18:52Oh, I'm, I'm so sorry.
18:55Is there something that makes me look particularly like a boy?
19:02Hey.
19:04The 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 was incredibly nerve
19:26-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. Why does it matter to you whether I
19:38am a boy or a girl?
19:39I think the way that Jim lived his life, how openly he lived his life, set a culture in the
19:46family that allowed me to be who I was, who I am.
19:49As a trans person, what I've, the issues I've had is a lot of hate speech. And it's a real
19:55problem 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.
20:05When 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 purely because I was a trans person who's here on
20:19the 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. Like, he was the Director of Public Health
20:54in 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. And 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.
21:46We 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.
22:02I remember in the hospital room really noticing all these small details about the way his tattoos had the needles
22:08in through them
22:10The way he looked slumped in the bed.
22:13And thinking, you 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 fairer, more loving and
22:30more compassionate.
22:33It was devastating for me, for all of us, for the whole family.
22:37I shut down my whole life. It felt like I'd fallen apart, yeah.
22:46I was 12 years old when Jim died.
22:49I don't think I had reckoned with his career or his professional life until his funeral.
22:56And I remember sitting and listening to people talking about Jim and realising the full range of who he was
23:05as a human, away from being my grandfather.
23:10Francis tells a story about Jim Pa.
23:13Yep, my hero.
23:14My hero.
23:16Should I put them up?
23:17A 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?
24:00All good?
24:02Jim Pa is a film about a film director, Hannah, who takes her non-binary teenager, Francis, to visit their
24:08grandfather Jim or Jim Pa, an eccentric gay man in Amsterdam.
24:13I want to live with Jim Pa for a bit.
24:15It's a three-way conversation between grandfather, mother and child.
24:20But you asked me to talk about it.
24:22The impetus to make Jim Pa the film was imagining what the conversation, the relationship between Jim and Aud would
24:33be like now.
24:35Now that Aud has grown into 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 Aud 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 Jim live in Amsterdam.
25:12It's a bigger decision. There's a lot more at stake.
25:15It's the celebrity children. Come here, come here.
25:20Jim had a big personality.
25:22When 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, as is so often the
26:00case with people who are so out there, so 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.
26:26He'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 gay figure.
26:32And 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?
26:40Working with Aud was effortless.
26:43It took me forever getting the pronouns right.
26:47But 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
26:57working 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 was 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, like, oh my God, I can't believe I said all this.
27:55I can't believe I showed all of this. I 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 Jimpa, 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 Jimpa.
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.
28:45Right after my mum was born, Jimpa 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.
28:56And 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.
30:03One, two, five.
30:07Two, two, four?
30:10Two, three.
30:11Good.
30:11I can't.
30:15Oh, wait.
30:19Oh!
30:23Two minutes!
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