FemmeFilmFest20 Interview: Kelsie Moore, director of The Get, Shelter in Place and The Gray Area

When the short films were whittled down to the final 20 for the Competition Selection of the 5th Femme Filmmakers Festival, it was hard to resist all three submitted by Kelsie Moore. The Australian director is the woman behind three very compelling, timely and varied in subject short documentaries.

With The Gray Area, Shelter in Place and The Get, Kelsie Moore has achieved remarkable representation of marginalised cultures, and each short film displays very different visual styles. We spoke to Kelsie about those three terrific films and her role as a filmmaker.

questions by Morgan Roberts and Robin Write

What is a story that has been overdone? What kinds of narratives should we replace it with?

I don’t know that I necessarily think any particular story has been overdone, but I do think certain processes have been overdone. I hope that COVID has incentivized production to be more localized and that folks will invest in more local talent.

I think it should have always been a higher value and priority for films but certainly with documentary – the power of stories coming from within that community is far more valuable than an outsider coming in to tell their version of it. I think we’re all starting to ask ourselves more, why am I the person to tell this story? Who is being left out in this storytelling process that is maybe more qualified to tell it? I’m really interested in challenging our industry to ask more ethical questions from those behind the lens.

What was the film to inspire you to be a filmmaker? What about that film ignited your passion for film?

When I graduated high school, I went to an independent art house theatre for the first time and saw The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. I had studied and loved film in high school and had a wonderful teacher but it wasn’t until I saw that film that I realized the possibilities of visual storytelling. The visual language of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is just stunning and that viewing experience is probably what cemented my love of French film and looking at cinematography a little differently. 

The Gray Area is a moving tale for sure. How did you approach technical aspects like music and cinematography to enhance the story-telling without manipulating your audience emotionally?

I was in a Sundance screening Q&A of an incredible Swedish film, Sami Blood, and the director Amanda Kernell said that she had intentionally avoided filming landscapes like a “postcard.” I’ve become a little obsessed with this notion of not romanticizing places just so your film and cinematography looks cool.

The temptation is always there because I’m a visual person and love beautiful images. But a film like The Gray Area did not call for cinematography that would make you lust for the desert and live in a trailer. I think this is all pretty subjective but I did try to not romanticize the landscape or the situation of the family living in the desert, and instead attempt to show something a little more gritty, while still feeling like you’re amongst the expanse of the dessert.

I had the same instinct for music, where I didn’t want the music to make you feel too much. I was hoping the story and the visuals would do that and the music could just carry you from one moment to the next without altering much of the feeling of a scene. 

Talk about the animation aspect of The Get. What was your involvement in that process? And why his format?

Our NPR member station in Utah is KUER and I make many short documentaries on the RadioWest team for them, The Get included. Because we are primarily radio, we often have interviews and audio that won’t make it on air but might make an excellent film.

The Get came about from our host and executive producer Doug Fabrizio interviewing Tova Mirvis and we focused a scene where she describes the events that took place for her to get a divorce in Orthodox Judaism. The choice to do animation was out of necessity because Tova had told the story so beautifully and I had been wanting to collaborate with professors from my alma mater BYU, who animated the piece. 

It was my second time directing an animated short and I gave more general sort of direction that started with wanting big black and white negative spaces and then the artists started to develop characters themselves. It was such an enjoyable collaboration and meant so much to our whole team who had various religious or personal history connections with Tova’s experience. 

What a timely film Shelter in Place is. How do these strange times of lockdown help you tell these stories? Which parts are relevant regardless of the Coronavirus situation?

While making films safely during lockdown is certainly a challenge, I actually enjoy having limitations and working through what is absolutely necessary for a film and the ethics of doing it. I’m grateful to take the opportunity to analyze what is so essential of a story or situation to film that we all need to put ourselves in a certain degree of danger to get that. It really makes you start to question how much of what we do is essential and to whom. 

Shelter in Place was filmed before COVID but once we hit lockdown and were ready to release the film, it seemed odd not to address Coronavirus. Especially because everyone in this film has been sustaining their own version of lockdown for months or years inside these churches they’ve sought sanctuary in.

So I recorded one more weekly zoom catch-up with the women where they talked about COVID and what was happening around them and their families. The bones of the film pre-COVID already spoke to isolation, mental health digression and survival. It has just been co-incidence that it resonates with what so many of us are experiencing day to day in lockdown right now, albeit under much different circumstances. My hope is that our personal experiences in lockdown give audiences a small glimpse of what has been happening inside sanctuary churches for years.

How do you find these stories and people? What was so different about making these three films? Also talk about the extraordinary importance of these cultures.

Finding stories I think boils down to being really curious and engaged in your community and the world. Having good instincts on what makes a good story helps, but I find it’s mostly about relationship building with the communities you’re a part of and then of course with the individuals you film. 

What is a film genre you have never worked in before that you want to try out?

Right before we went into lockdown, I was in pre-production gearing up to DP a feature length fiction film in May. I haven’t worked much in the narrative space so was really looking forward to the challenge. That will be the next adventure when we can safely do it!

Financing can be an initial barrier to filmmaking. What advice do you have for new filmmakers trying to finance a project?

I’ve been lucky to have a lot of support from our Utah NPR affiliate, KUER, to bring some amazing stories to life. Having someone who believes in me as an individual maker and is equally invested in the stories we tell for the communities we tell them to, has been extremely rewarding.

I think a lot of great film production happens here in Utah because we are a small community and work with each other all the time. So we are all investing in lasting relationships and the place we love to live in. 

There are some women directors who do not like the term “female filmmaker” because men are never called “male filmmakers.” How do you feel about the moniker “female filmmaker?” How do we make “filmmaker” a universal term?

Achieving racial and gender parity in film is going to have growing pains. What I want to see happening more, is that hiring women and BIPOC is an actionable value statement in the hiring process. That it’s part of the job description to bring a lens and experience to the project that is different than the status quo. 

What have you learned about yourself during the lockdown period?

I’ve definitely started to enjoy a slower pace and investing more in myself and things besides work. Walking my dog in the evenings and enjoying the fresh air is my biggest joy. I definitely need more hobbies that involve making things with my hands.