Aussie Rocker Josh Rennie-Hynes Transitions to a Musical Life in Nashville

Details

Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Thursday, 19 September 2024 13:38

Written by Brad Balfour

Australia is one peculiar place, a land full of animals not found anywhere else like the koala and kangaroo. It has an odd history as well. Following the loss of its American colonies in 1783, the British government sent a fleet of ships to establish a new penal colony in New South Wales. Set up at Sydney Cove, Port Jackson, on January 26th, 1788, the date later became Australia’s national day.  

Most early settlers were convicts — many of them Irish — transported for petty crimes and assigned as laborers or servants to the “free settlers.” Once emancipated, the convicts tended to integrate into colonial society. What convict rebellions and uprisings there were got suppressed under martial law. That lasted for two years following the 1808 Rum Rebellion, Australia’s only successful coup d’état. Over the next two decades, social and economic reforms saw New South Wales transition from a penal colony into a civil society.

Nearly 200 years later, the island nation also spawned its own brand of pop music collectively called “Oz” or “Aussie” rock. With a rich history rooted in various rock genres from the United States and Britain, Australian rock also contributed to their development of some of them. What’s more, it had its own unique Australian sound with pub rock and indigenous music.

For contemporary Aussie rocker Josh Rennie-Hynes, the past few years have been a whirlwind. After being awarded the prestigious Australian Arts Council’s Nashville Songwriters Residency –– a grant given to just one Australian artist each year –– the Queensland-born musician relocated to the US in May 2018. This move marked a new chapter for Rennie-Hynes. He left behind a thriving solo career in Australia, as well as his role in The Ahern Brothers, a folk duo whose harmony-rich debut album earned a four-star review from “Rolling Stone” and a dedicated fan base across Australia and New Zealand.

Seeking a change in both musical direction and environment, Rennie-Hynes settled in the creative, close-knit community of East Nashville. Immersed in the city’s vibrant music scene, he released a series of singles and four full-length albums since his move, 2019’s “Patterns,” 2022’s “Day Rage” and in 2023 — “Light/Shade” and “Fragile Like a Bomb.” These added to an already impressive catalog which included “Self-titled” in 2012, “February” in 2014, and “Furthermore” in 2016.

In 2020, he signed a publishing deal with Urband and Lazar, a company with artists such as The Kooks, Lil Wayne, and Citizen Cope. His music has been featured on multiple TV shows and he was the most-placed artist on the latest season of the global hit Netflix series, “Virgin River.”
Rennie-Hynes’ music, marked by its authenticity and eclecticism, is familiar yet distinctively his own. One of Australia’s standout musical exports, he’s built a reputation for his unforgettable live performances, touring extensively across Australia, New Zealand, and the US. He performs regularly in Nashville and has toured throughout the States. 

This interview was conducted online with the Australian-born, Nashville-based artist who continues to evolve in his musical journey.

Q: When/how did you settle on the style of music you write in and like to perform?

Josh Rennie-Hynes: My music has changed and evolved quite a lot. I’m six albums deep now with more on the way. I started out more in the folk/Americana world and since then have evolved in my sound, growing and exploring along the way. Moving to America six and a half years ago really opened me up to trying new things and pushing myself artistically without fear in an entirely new place. But I think I’ve always tried to write honestly from my heart, no matter what the production or genre is. My newest album ‘Fragile like a bomb’ is a more indie rock outing. To me, it’s all just music. I like to explore and follow what inspires me.
Q: What comes first — lyrics or the music? And, how do you structure your songs?

It can be either. I take songs however they come. Sometimes I’ll have a lyric that’s floating around in my head that I build a song around. Sometimes it’s a melody or guitar line that I build out from. Sometimes a song or hook comes to me in a dream and I’ll wake up and record the idea. I’ve always got songs and ideas floating around in my head. 

Q: Given your Australian experience, how did it shape you and your music?

Josh Rennie-Hynes: I grew up in the country on a small farm so that definitely shaped my outlook and perspective on life and music. I have a strong sense and appreciation for nature and I think most Aussies have a spirit of the bush imbued in us. The smell of the eucalyptus, the chorus of birds in the morning… There are certain things that have just stuck with me and made their way into my music. I went back last Christmas for the first time in five and a half years. COVID and the visa situation kept me stuck in the U.S. I really felt like it reawakened something in me. 

Growing up, it was a very musical household. Dad was always playing and singing, mum playing records. Family gatherings we’d often sit around with a guitar and sing songs late into the night together. Looking back, it was special and definitely impacted my music. I’ve always felt drawn to melody and harmonies too. 

Q: Do you have certain rock icons in mind, especially Australian artists?

Josh Rennie-Hynes: One of the first concerts I ever remember seeing as a kid was Midnight Oil. I remember watching [lead singer] Peter Garrett on stage, flailing around dancing, and just being mesmerized.That had a huge impact on me at a young age. I feel like I went through stages with a lot of the great rock icons and became a student of them at different times — Neil Young, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen and such. I grew up playing in more punk-esque bands, too, in my teenage years. Guys like Paul Westerberg [formerly of the Replacements] definitely had an impact on me. Paul Kelly is a legendary Australian songwriter and artist, so I’d put him in there, too. 

Q: You also have Irish roots like many Australians do. Please detail your family’s connection to Ireland. 

Josh Rennie-Hynes: My great, great grandparents Peter and Margaret Hynes migrated from Galway, Ireland to New Zealand in 1875, searching for a better life. They sailed on a ship called the ‘James Nichol Fleming’ and they left London on May 4th, 1875, and arrived in Otago, New Zealand exactly three months later, on August 4th, 1875. My father, Roderick Wallace Hynes, was a Kiwi. He moved to Australia when he was 20 years old and met my mum while working on her family’s banana farm in sub-tropical Queensland. She became pregnant, they got married and the rest is history. 

Q: Making the transition from Australia to the States, what did it take to make the adjustment?

Josh Rennie-Hynes: I think I was pretty ready for it when I moved, so I didn’t find it too hard. I had always felt the pull to just come and live in the US and feel it out. I was fascinated by the chaos of it here, as strange as that might sound, and the market for music and opportunity is huge. Nashville is a good place and it felt like home pretty quickly to me. Being completely landlocked was definitely hard at first, coming from Australia where it’s all wide open spaces and ocean. That took me a few years to adjust to, but I have my water spots here now so I’m more at peace. There are a lot of subtle cultural differences, too. But there’s also a lot of similarities. 

Q: What is the inspiration here — and why Nashville not Los Angeles or NYC?

Josh Rennie-Hynes: I specifically moved to Nashville because, in 2018 when I was moving to the US, right before I left, I was fortunate to receive the “Nashville Songwriters residency” which is awarded to one Australian songwriter a year from the Australian Arts Council.

(More on the grant here: https://creative.gov.au/investment-and-development/international-engagement/residencies/nashville-songwriters-residency/)

This led me to Nashville. I didn’t have a plan as to whether I would stay in Nashville long term or not. But here we are six and a half years later. I like Nashville a lot. I’ve always lived in East Nashville and it’s a big creative community. There’s so much more here than just country music. 

Q: Ever think you’ll return to Australia to live?

Josh Rennie-Hynes: Yes, I think so at some point. I am about to get married to my American partner and we want to have a family in the coming years. I think we’d like for some of their childhood to be in Australia as it’s a great place to raise kids. But I’ve got lots happening here too, so we’ll see how it all pans out. 

Q: What do you think of as your life’s benchmarks so far?

Josh Rennie-Hynes: I think my albums are my life’s benchmarks. I’m really proud of all of them. I can look back on them and say that I gave each and every other album my all at that point in time. And they all document a different chapter in my life. Growth and exploration. The creative path isn’t always easy but it’s a beautiful ride and you learn a lot about yourself. 

Director Rich Peppiatt Brings Irish Hip Hop to the World Through his Award-Winning Film “Kneecap”

Details

Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Wednesday, 07 August 2024 15:02

Written by Brad Balfour

Photo: Brad Balfour

When I was given tickets to its Tribeca Festival premiere, I was excited to see “Kneecap,” even if only to hear Gaelic rap. Thanks to the manic performance of this Belfast-based trio and the frantic direction by Rich Peppiatt, I declare that — as Charlie XCX would say — it’s “brat.”

“Kneecap” is this sex, drugs, and hip-hop biopic about a real life trio from Northern Ireland which does its business in Gaelic, the aboriginal Irish language. In 2019, fate brought together disillusioned music teacher, JJ, with self-confessed “low life scum,” Naoise and Liam Og. The result? Performers “Kneecap” and the sound of Irish music was changed forever.

But amongst all the mad stuff in the film that Irish-Brit Peppiatt made out their origin story, it’s really about the protection of indigenous language and culture. That combination of serious issues with the group’s wild antics made it a sensation at Sundance where it won the NEXT audience award. Now released through Sony Pictures Classics, it’s been selected as the Irish entry for Best International Feature Film Oscar at the 97th Academy Awards.

Before all this, Peppiatt worked as a journalist for numerous national newspapers. In 2011, his resignation letter to “Daily Star” proprietor Richard Desmond –– in which he accused the paper of Islamophobia and unethical journalism –– went viral when it was leaked to “The Guardian” newspaper. He became a prominent critic of tabloid behavior, giving evidence at the Leveson Inquiry into Press Ethics.

Peppiatt turned his experiences as a journalist and the fallout from his resignation into a stand-up comedy show titled “One Rogue Reporter.” It premiered at the 2012 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Described as “hilariously turning the tables on the tabloid power players, it tested the public’s right to know to its eye-opening extremity.”

After Edinburgh, the show toured across the UK, finishing up with a run at London’s Soho Theatre. Peppiatt transformed it into a documentary, “One Rogue Reporter” — starring Hugh Grant, Steve Coogan and John Bishop — which premiered at Sheffield DocFest in 2014.

Now, with “Kneecap” tossing the British-Irish writer/director together with the group into a worldwide media salad, this arts editor was engaged to probe both director and band about their lives and the film’s impact. Here’s my conversation with Peppiatt. Next week, look for my encounter with the trio. 

Q: A number of people have made movies about the Troubles. To show the post-Troubles world is fascinating. As you said in the production notes, you’ve heard about Kneecap and then it hit you. Is that what the movie is about?

Rich Peppiatt: I just went to one of their gigs. It was as simple as that, really. I was blown away by their stage presence, their sort of charisma, and the fact that they didn’t care about wearing their politics on their sleeves. Myself, I felt that music, in a big way, has become much more manufactured, PR’d to death and packaged up. They were so the opposite of that — that’s what I thought was so interesting. Above and beyond that, there were 800 young people in this crowd who were singing back every word. They were rapping in Irish. 
 
To me, it was a bit of a revelation. There was this sort of community in the north of Ireland of young people who were engaged with the language. Certainly, at a political level, there was a real stasis around the Irish Language Act which was a hot topic, but it didn’t seem to be going anywhere. So the juxtaposition of what was happening on the political level and this grassroots movement that was building, I just thought was the foundation of something interesting. 
 
Q: There’s a big debate in Ireland about reunification in 2030 where there’s hope to reunify, and it’s moving forward. Acceptance of the Irish language and allowing it to become, not a secondary thing, but an important aspect of learning the culture, is a cool thing. At the same time, this film probes the clubs and music scene in Belfast. How did you manage to include it all — and Michael Fassbender — without overwhelming us about it. 
 
Rich Peppiatt: I think Kneecap is very political in a small “p” way. Their political stance is just who they are. One thing that really interested me was their speaking the Irish language, in the way they do. Living their lives through the Irish language, whilst being born in and living under what is legal or illegal in the United Kingdom. That is fundamentally a very political act –– to reject not only recognition of the state, but also to reject their language. It’s such a fundamentally political thing to do that I found it very inspiring and very powerful. A lot of the politics in the film are built off of that.
 
Q: In Dublin, there’s a crop of bars that have grown up north of the Liffey [river] that very much reflects the kind of crowd that the youth are about. Once again, the youth are identifying with their own music and scene. You’re definitely older but you must have identified a scene that you were part of at one time.
 
Rich Peppiatt: I used to be a journalist. That was my first career, and I ended up resigning very publicly from my career in journalism and leaking my resignation letter to the Guardian. I ended up doing a stand-up comedy show based around that and making a documentary that was me going after tabloid newspaper editors.
 
Q: “One Rogue Reporter.” 
 
Rich Peppiatt: Yes, and that was a controversial film which upset people as well. I am just naturally drawn to controversy, but not for controversy’s sake. I just think that sometimes an interesting way to get underneath a topic and spark a conversation around certain issues is to do something controversial. I think that me and the band really bonded over that with a kind of a fairly carefree attitude as to what people think of us. 
 
Q: You’re making a documentary about them, but they’re acting themselves besides other actors….
 
Rich Peppiatt: I certainly wouldn’t call it a documentary. 
 
Q: A faux documentary?
 
Rich Peppiatt: Well, I don’t know if I’d call it that. You’re quite welcome to call it that because this is a film that different people will call different things. Some will say it’s a musical. I would call it a black comedy.
 
Q: There’s that too. 
 
Rich Peppiatt: There’s some documentary nods to it but, really, it’s a narrative feature film. The fact that it’s based on true events and also stars the people as themselves makes it quite a unique proposition as a project. That was probably something which maybe got us funded. It felt very different from anything out there that’s been done before. 
 
Q: Another thing about it is that it’s very meta to have your actors playing themselves. So, to some degree, they’re finding their truth in themselves in other ways. They’re adding a level of artifice. 
 
Rich Peppiatt: There’s a great degree of bravery that’s involved in the art of acting yourself on screen. If I say to them, “I want you to be sixth century knights,” and the audience turns around and goes, “that guy’s an asshole,” the character isn’t you. It doesn’t really affect your own feelings about yourself. But when you put your own real self up on the screen, you’re asking an audience to judge you, your family, and the decisions you make. That’s a vulnerable thing to do. 
 
Certainly, a lot of the film is true and it took the boys to places sometimes that were quite difficult for them, particularly around Nisha’s storyline, family issues and things like that. It brought up a lot of things. Perhaps they were things they weren’t always expecting it to bring up. It was difficult at times. But they persevered. They were determined to see it through and not shy away from that.But you’re right, it is a very meta film. Beyond just them playing themselves, there’s a lot of very overt nods to other films like “Trainspotting.” We have a whole thing in there, JJ disappearing down a bin. It’s just a very meta nod to the worst toilet in Scotland. There’s a scene with JJ in a mirror trying on his balaclava and dancing around and that’s “La Haine.”
 
Q: You mention that Danny Boyle is a very meta kind of director in some of his movies. You don’t even think about it until you think about it. 
 
Rich Peppiatt: Some directors don’t like the idea that anyone would think that they’ve copied anyone else or taken inspiration from anyone else. But the truth is, there’s nothing new under the sun. Personally, as a filmmaker, I have no problem doffing my cap to those who’ve come before and going, “Hey, I love that thing. Here’s my version of it.”
 
Q: Did you find that your English background gave you a different perspective on this? And then have you been out of the community? 
 
Rich Peppiatt: I don’t think an Irish man or woman could have made this film. I think that there’s so much baggage that comes with it, it would have been seen as sectarian.  I think the fact that I am British makes me Teflon from any accusation that, “The film you’ve seen is anti-British.” You can’t turn around and say it’s an anti-British film when it’s written and directed by a British person, right? It’s like whatever “The Daily Mail” or someone’s Britishness should be isn’t necessarily what I think Britishness should be. I think that Britishness is about recognizing your colonial past and the impact that the imperialism of my homeland has caused on places like the island of Ireland. 
 
Q: Have you learned a little Gaelic? 
 
Rich Peppiatt: Absolutely, I did two years of Irish classes. I threw myself into it. I was doing like five classes a week. I still wouldn’t say I’m fluent, but I get by. I’m the only one in my Irish family who speaks any Irish, so I like to throw that in their faces when they’re taking the Mick out of me for being English.
 
Q: There’s many opportunities for this movie to take the piss out of you. 
 
Rich Peppiatt: There you go.
 
Q: What are the things you think of as the most profound things you learned from the experience? 
 
Rich Peppiatt: In the learning of the language, there was a real understanding of what it means to the band, as a thing. Irish is an oral language, unlike English, which is a written language. So it’s passed down through music, stories and poetry. It was a realization that kneecaps were part of this very proud canon that stretches back, that predates English, of Irish storytellers. They are a modern version of that, but they very much are within that mold. I think that their cultural impact has been massive on the island of Ireland. It will outlast their music, and it will outlast this film. The impact they’ll have will be in preserving the language of their forefathers. And I think that’s a really special thing that they can lay claim to, even though they would never sit there and say it themselves. 
 
Q: Was there a difference between audiences seeing it in the North, and audiences seeing it in the South? 
 
Rich Peppiatt: To be honest, the film hasn’t really screened that much. Since we won the Audience Award at Sundance in January, most of our screenings have been in America. We’ve done a few European festivals and have had an Irish premiere. A very select few people in Ireland have really seen it so far, and that’s exciting. But it’s not until this month that the Irish proper premieres, when their release week sort of stuff happens.

We’re very excited to have the film out in America. It’s not something we expected –– going out to 1,000 or 1,500 screens. It’s a big release. Sony Pictures Classic have released some of my favorite films. My youngest daughter’s name is Amelie. My other daughter gets annoyed when I say that, because she says, why am I not named after one of your favorite films? And I say, “I didn’t think you wanted to be called “Trainspotting,” love. Ha ha!” [chuckling]
 
Q: At Sundance, you must have met people that are some of your icons and idols and all that. Did you get to meet anyone? 
 
Rich Peppiatt: Not really. To me it was all a bit of a blur. The film was received very well, and you have these things, then, Hollywood descends on you a bit. It was an interesting experience of having these meetings and talk about other films you want to do, being offered films that maybe you want to do.So it all passed and then you’d pop in to see the band occasionally. They’d be in a bar, drinking themselves to death. I was trying to balance having a bit of fun with doing some business, striking while the iron’s hot. You didn’t really know whether that week would be the week, or whether it would spiral from there. Luckily it has spiraled, and we’re in a very good position now. On a personal level, it’s opened a lot of doors that I never thought it would. And, it’s exciting.
 
Q: Quite an evolution from “The Guardian” I would say.
 
Rich Peppiatt: I did work at “The Guardian” at one point, but the paper I was on was “The Daily Star,” so it was an even bigger evolution. I worked on those papers. That was my first career. It was. I can’t say that I professed that I was a great journalist. But certainly, once you’re a journalist, journalism is storytelling. Once you have a feel for storytelling, it never leaves you.
 
I never live with regret. I think that the things that you do before set you up for the things you do after, sometimes in weird ways. I think of the sorts of projects, of films that interest me and do it. They’re always based in real life. I’m not a great person with a blank page. It’s always something based on a real thing.
 
Q: Do you think it’d be things based on your own life? Or do you think it’ll always be things you discover? 
 
Rich Peppiatt: No, not particularly my own life; I don’t think it’s that interesting. But I’ve lived a few lives. Certainly, spending five years with “Kneecap” has aged me somewhat.
 
For part of my life, I was a hard partier when I was a bit younger. But when I moved to Belfast, I’d just had my second child. It was the idea of moving out of London with my wife to live in Belfast for a bit of a quieter life, away from the madness of London. But within two weeks of arriving, I met Kneecap. My wife was like, “Of all the people you could make friends with, it would be those three? The hardest partying lads in the North!”
 
Q: Here you are. You’re moved to Belfast to have a quiet life, and then you’re making a music film, which isn’t exactly quiet. Of all the stars you could meet, or would meet, or would like to use for the next film, who was on your mind? James McAvoy or Ewan McGregor? But there you go, Danny Boyle –– have you ever met him, or do you want to meet him? 
 
Rich Peppiatt: The funny thing was, our composer –– a guy called Mikey J. Asante –– he was working with Danny Boyle in Manchester, on “The Matrix” musical.
 
Q: “The Matrix” musical?
 
Rich Peppiatt: One day, Mikey was sitting in a room, watching a part of our film, working out some music. Danny walked in, and he was like, “What are you watching?” Danny sat down and watched a couple scenes of the film, and then walked out. Then Mikey called me and was like, “You wouldn’t believe it. Danny Boyle’s just watched some of your film and he loves it!” I was like, “That’s great, that’s amazing.”Then the other person who… I woke up one morning and [“Trainspotting” author] Irvine Welsh had somehow gotten to a screening, like a freebie screening. And he had tweeted that he thought the film was absolutely fucking brilliant. That was a big kick. So now me and Irvine are actually talking about a project together.
 
Q: You could do his style, definitely. 
 
Rich Peppiatt: Look, it’s been a very transformative year, personally, for me. And then people say, “Are you enjoying it?” Yeah, I guess I am, but it’s also very anxiety-inducing. There’s so much going on all the time. And –– but no, look –– it’s filmmaking. Whenever you get a chance to be doing something that you’d do for free, but get paid for it, you’re not in a bad place. 
 
Q: Speaking of that, how did you cast Michael Fassbender and bring him in? How did you entice him? He’s the biggest star that you could get. How did that happen? That’s the obvious question here.
 
Rich Peppiatt: Well, there’s only really a handful of what you’d call top-tier Irish actors who speak Irish.
 
Q: Oh, I didn’t think of that hook. 
 
Rich Peppiatt: That was the thing. We went, “Well, who is there?” Michael Fassbender is a hero in Belfast for the way he depicted Bobby Sands in Steve McQueen’s Hunger. Okay. So for us, he was the first choice straight away. It was like, “Look, it’d be amazing to have Michael Fassbender.” And the script got into his hands. I think maybe, one of the funders, friend of a friend, sort of thing. Within a week, I got a text message saying, “Hi, it’s Michael. Do you want to chat?” To be honest, I thought it was one of those spam messages, or something. I thought, “Who’s Michael? Michael who?” I didn’t have a number saved for him. Then suddenly I realized, “Oh, maybe that’s Michael Fassbender.” Then 15 minutes later, we’re on the phone together. And 15 minutes after that, I came off the call. He had agreed to do it. 
 
Q: You directed Michael Fassbender [playing Arlo Ó Cairealláin father of trio member Naoise “Móglaí Bap” Ó Cairealláin]. Was that a little intimidating or did you slip right into it? Did the boys bust his chops, or whatever? 
 
Rich Peppiatt: Michael Fassbender –– look at the directors he’s worked with. From Tarantino, to Steve McQueen, it’s a who’s who — he’s really worked with everyone. Obviously, the weird thing about being a director is, unless you’ve come up within the system, so to speak, you’ve worked your way up through production — which I haven’t — you never really know how any other director directs anything. There’s only one director on set. You don’t spend much time with other directors. There’s always a part of you that questions whether the approach you take is similar, or whatever, to other directors’ approaches. Part of that’s because you can direct a film in a thousand different ways. 
 
There is no one right way to do it. But it certainly puts into focus in your head a little bit, with the idea that this guy’s worked with the best of the best. Is he going to be thinking, “What the hell is this guy fricking at?” Do you know what I mean? He would always hang out with us after shooting, and have some beers. And I’m sure at some point, drunkenly, I probably asked him, “Am I doing this right, Michael?”He was very complimentary, which was nice. He was probably just being polite. But when you look on a monitor and you see Michael Fassbender there doing a scene that you wrote, on your set, it certainly is a moment when you go, “I’m living the dream here!” You can also tell why he’s a movie star. You see him on that monitor –– the control he has, the poise he has on camera, just the look of him. He’s just got it.
 
Q: He has that eye and when he’s looking at the camera, or looking away, he’s got it down. 
 
Rich Peppiatt: Exactly. so, you go, “Okay, I can see why this guy is big time.” But also, he’s a lovely man. He brought a lot to the role and to the set. One thing the band was taught when we’re doing acting classes is that acting is all about reacting. It’s about listening and it’s about being in that moment with your co-stars. Good actors give you good things to react to, while bad actors give you nothing to react to. It’s hard to have a good scene and give a good performance across from a terrible actor.
 
Q: The band rose to the occasion.
 
Rich Peppiatt: They rose to the occasion. Absolutely. As good as I felt they were in rehearsals and in the studio, we were learning our acting chops …. They took it up 30 to 40% when we were on set actually doing the thing. Maybe that’s the performers in them as well. They used to being backstage and then, bang! The music drops and out they go; they turn it on. Certainly, when the camera rolled, they turned it on.
 
Q: Now, here you are, you’re on the stage, then you’re getting this movie scene — blah, blah, blah. Are you expecting to jump right into the next thing? Or do you need to chill out? How are you handling it? 
 
Rich Peppiatt: It’s been a long time now, since January, where it feels like sort of revving the engine with a handbrake on. Do you know what I mean? You’re promoting the film, going to film festivals, and then it’s all great. But I finished the film quite a long time ago now. And you’re ready to get on with the next thing. I’ve got a film lined up. It’s with an American studio, and that’ll be shooting next year, hopefully. So, we’ll see.

In the New Film “Crossing," Borders of All Kinds Make a Difference in Life and Love

Details

Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Monday, 05 August 2024 14:58

Written by Brad Balfour

Making a crossing between borders can be a lot more than just a matter of passports and visas. Witness the situation between Northern Ireland and the Republic to the south. The same is true for the crossing between the countries of Georgia and Turkey. Both are Muslim countries but when you consider the difference between a rural Georgian village and cosmopolitan Istanbul, that simple move means a lot -- especially if you’re gay or trans.

In "Crossing,” an older woman searches for her late sister's child — who is trans — who had to leave their very conservative village in Georgia for comparatively open Istanbul, Turkey. As directed by Levan Akin, the story involves not only the search for a person. but also the discovery of contrasting social and political situations.

Born in December, 1979, Swedish film director/screenwriter Akin is best known for his gay-oriented film, “And Then We Danced,” which received critical acclaim and won the 2019 Guldbagge Award for Best Film.

The 44-year-old was born and raised in Tumba, Sweden but his parents are Georgian. They moved to the Scandinavian country in the 1960s, when Georgia was one of the republics of the Soviet Union. Akin returns to Georgia every year with his sister for the summer holidays. There, he consolidates his knowledge of Georgian culture and language. 

In January 2023, it was announced that the openly gay Akin had written and directed “Crossing,” with principal photography concluding in Istanbul. It world premiered on February 15th, 2024, as part of the 74th Berlin International Film Festival’s opening Panorama. At Berlin, it received the Jury Prize from the Teddy Award jury for LGBTQ-themed films. It was then released in Sweden in March 2024. Mubi acquired distribution rights for North and Latin America, United Kingdom, Ireland, and Germany. The film recently made its New York debut at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival before landing in theaters in July.

This Q&A was culled from a moderated conversation in the Angelika Theater where the film is now playing.

Q: Your last film, “And Then We Danced” was The Swedish Oscar contender. It was about some very cute dancers who are coming to terms with their sexuality. It was a movie that was met with some difficulty in protests in Georgia where it takes place and where your parents are from. Was it an easier experience going into this film? 

Levan Akin: Filming “And Then We Danced” was tricky for several reasons. But one of them was obviously the subject matter. I don't think it would have been if it was just a movie about the gay guys, but it was the dance element which was [based on] tradition. With this show, we didn't have any problems like that. Not at all. We did everything that we could to do our thing filming in both Georgia and in Istanbul. They let us.

Q: You are not showing “Crossing” in Georgia. 

Levan Akin: Actually, that was mis-quoted. We were going to show it, not on the screen. But as soon as it premiered in Berlin, they started writing and making up stuff about it. They hadn't seen it, but because I made it, they were just using it as a political tool. So we decided to drop it. Now we're going to be in Sweden in November, depending on the elections in Georgia. 

Q: Probably you might feel some trepidation about screening it there, just based on the experience of Polaska.

Levan Akin: Yes, of course. However, it's a very loud minority, I would say, that scream the loudest in Georgia. I think most of Georgia is very supportive of it. 

Q: Talk about the germ of the idea for this movie. Wasn't it a true story that you heard about when you were working on “And Then We Danced”?

Levan Akin: Exactly. Actually it was during the aftermath of “And Then We Danced.” Everything in the news back then in Georgia was about queer things. There was a story about a grandfather who had never been surprised by this, but was very supportive of his granddaughter who was trans. She'd been kicked out of the household from the village where they lived, and he would go and visit her once a week.  

I thought it was a nice story. That was one of the things, but also the whole discussion about “And Then We Danced” really made this film. They're sort of in conversation with each other, because of the narrative, the discourse around it.  “And Then We Danced” was very much like, Oh, it's the old generation versus the young generation. Or it's Post-Soviet versus Soviet, where all of the older people are bigots and homophobes. That felt very polarizing. I felt like it only served the oppressors to have that sort of narrative about this topic. (A) That's not true. And (B) It would be interesting to make a movie from the perspective of a relative or someone, and how they come to terms with this. 

Q: How did you find each of your actors? You have a trio of really great ones here. The older actress, Mzia Arabuli, has some theater credits, but she comes into this movie playing retired teacher, Lia. And she seems like a veteran, trained for a long time. 

Levan Akin: She's incredible. The first time, it was very hard to cast this film. It took much longer than I've ever cast a movie. It's because we needed three leads and all of them had to be interesting. They had to be able to work together in a good way, but also they should be able to carry their own movie by themselves. That was tricky.

Then also there's a huge cast of smaller roles. All of them have to be believable with all of these things, but it's not so easy to find actors. There's not a lot of trans actors, unfortunately, in Turkey or anything like that, so it was very tricky. The actor, Deniz Dumanlı — she played the role of a lawyer who works for a Gay support-oriented NGO — was also hard to find. But when I saw her, I fell in love with her, by the way. Of course, Her face is incredible.

Q: Is it true that Mzia hadn't really ever spent time with any trans people? 

Levan Akin: Yeah, of course not. She hadn't. It's a very marginalized community in Georgia and it's very hard for them to get jobs, regular jobs. Most of them are, unfortunately, sex workers because they don't have options. It's not like something unique in every decent society. It's getting better, but a lot of Georgian women go to Turkey like in the movie to work there. We actually had a lot of people from the community in Turkey, also in the team. Mzia and Yasmin became besties. There was a nice story unfolding behind the scenes of the film, too. 

Q: It's so meta now. 

Levan Akin: It really is. I want all of my work to be for me, personally. You spend a lot of time making movies. And life is short, so I want to do things where I also learn. It has to be interesting for me to make these films. 

Q: What about the actor, Deniz Dumanli, who plays Evrim? This is her first movie? The way that you play with audience expectations where when we first meet her, we think maybe this is Tekla. She also kind of looks like Lia in a way. 

Levan Akin: Again, she's not an actress. I felt as soon as they came in front of a camera, they became actors. She's not trained as an actor or anything. But she saw an ad on Facebook, and her friend was like, “You always wanted to be an actor. You should apply.” She applied, and we called her for a very small role, but she was so good. It was like, that was in the end. And that was like two days before we started filming. It's a long story. I won't go into that. And the first scene she did was the one where she's partially naked. But she owned it. She walked in comfortably, and she was born to be on screen. 

Q: Talk about how you embedded yourself in the trans community in Istanbul. You spent a lot of time there.

Levan Akin: It was tricky because it was during the pandemic. Everything was closed. All of the spaces and rooms that I wanted to enter, I wasn't able to. That took quite some time but we did it. We started very classically. We contacted all the NGOs. Pink Life, which is in the movie and another really good NGO in Ankara. We started with that. Then I met several people that became an inspiration to the character I knew. Many of the people I met, I included in the film. Many are playing versions of themselves. A lot of the scenes are stuff that happened while I was doing research. 

Q: What about the street kids in the movie? Filmmakers find children, and it's like you go through a process where you end up suddenly with hundreds. 

Levan Akin: That's exactly what happened here. We looked, and looked, and looked. A film is everything. It tests everything. So, if it's not right, you might as well not make it. I feel it has to be right. Otherwise, it's a waste of everyone's time.

Q: The ending deceives us at first about what Tekla’s fate might be — it’s this kind of movie moment. You see there's a reconciliation. But the fact is that maybe Tekla is not actually in trouble. Maybe they] don't necessarily want to be found. Was that always the ending that you had in mind?

Levan Akin: Yeah. It came early on. I thought it was important for me to include that monologue that Mzia does at the very end, for many of us from the region and all over the world. In Turkey and Georgia, we haven't been able to have that conversation with the people around us. Just to have her ask, “What are you going to tell her if you find her?” I couldn't have Lia find her. “Maybe [she] wouldn't likeyou.”That would be cheesy, right? I was like, “I really want to hear what she would say. That's what I really want to hear.”

Q: Did you encourage Mzia and Lucas Kankava [the young villager who travels with her to help in the search] to spend time on their own, hanging out together?

Levan Akin: No, because they were also a casting lesson. Every day we were casting. I spent like two years finding new people. I had to postpone the film a bit. It was going to come out a year before but then I stopped filming, because I hadn't found the right people. Also, I felt like I hadn't been able to spend enough time with the community. I didn't really feel like I had enough with me to make a film in a way where I could stand confidently here, now, and be able to talk about it.

Q: It's also quite an international production. How many different countries were involved?

Levan Akin: It’s horrible, the whole European financing system is a nightmare, a mess. You bring in all of this money, but at the end of the day it doesn't really help you. You have to spend that money in those countries. Everything becomes more expensive and you have so many chefs. I have a main producer, and she's incredible. She also worked with me on a million ads. She's Swedish and lives there. Luckily, she guards me somehow. Everything goes through her. Otherwise, it would be a nightmare. It's hard because it's difficult financing, of course. It's always difficult. The system in Europe is very dangerous.

Q: Obviously, you've been through this gauntlet of Oscar submissions before. Given the number of countries that produce this movie, which would be the one that would submit it?

Levan Akin: It's a Swedish production company — they're the main financiers. They put in the most money.  

Q: It's fascinating how you managed to insinuate yourself into the two countries. You said you spent a lot of time there that allowed that to happen. There's a sort of a casualness that you're able to achieve, like we're really walking there. What did you do to affect this? Were there things in terms of learning the area, in terms of the lighting or other things? Writing it is different from shooting it.

Levan Akin: I love traveling. I also love to sit in a room where you can go to places and feel immersed. So, me and the DOP, we really worked with this in a way where we used a lot of long lenses and had a lot of a foreground of people in Istanbul. There was a whole camera person meandering off doing his own thing. This was also something that we talked about. I wanted the camera to feel like a third person that was with them on the trip. That was sometimes the object that would be looking at them from afar. Sometimes it was both. Also, we would hide a fountain of stuff because we couldn't afford [to pay for permission].

It was very much like people. It's like thousands of people everywhere. And it's never silent. There's always music playing. There's cats everywhere. But the thing is, we couldn't afford to have like a thousand extras, obviously. So, what we would do is that we have 40 of our own extras that are around the main actors, and then everybody else is real people, but you can't show their faces. We were on zoom lenses from the balcony. Then we would zoom in so they would be out of focus. That was kind of fun. We really liked that.

Q: What really inspired you to make this film? And how did you get it so right?

Levan Akin: Thank you. The inspiration was very much the aftermath of “And Then We Danced.” It was a conversation of like, you know, “What I was talking about before with this generational conversation?” I just felt like I'd never seen a film in that region from the perspective of an older person. 

Also, while I was shooting, we danced. I was working with some girls who were also in the movie and they suddenly said some words in Turkish. I was like, "Oh, how do you guys know Turkish?" They were like, "We go to Istanbul to work.” I was like, "Oh, okay."

I always wanted to capture a city like Istanbul. I used to go there a lot as a child. We had relatives there. We would go to Georgia and travel to Istanbul. My father was like, "I've been traveling in business and we had some business there." I used to spend time there. It was always a city that fascinated me. It’s a very transient city. It's always changing. It's very difficult to tell. It was very difficult to film in Istanbul because of the nature of the city. And, I also love Turkish music.

That's why I wanted to make this film. There were several things, but the one that was very important to me all along was to involve the community in the filming process. It was not just about having trans people in front of the camera, but also behind the camera.

For instance, our main casting person is a guy called Bulut, who is trans. He knew a lot of the people that are in the film. There were always people on set that were always talking about things. And also very much in the communication that everyone does in front of the camera. My job as a director is as an observer. I like to find specific things that make a scene feel real and lived in. I don't know how it is to actually live in Istanbul. But a lot of my work is just listening — being there observing, and then curating what I see and deciding what to begin with.