By Patrick Scott
To support documentary filmmakers in regional New South Wales, the Australian International Documentary Conference [AIDC] and Screenworks have launched new initiative Regionality that allows filmmakers to pitch their film projects to industry experts live, and receive immediate feedback to further develop their skills.
We spoke with emerging filmmaker Matty Hannon, who has been selected to take part for his film The Road to Patagonia.
Can you tell us a little about what Regionality involves?
“It’s a really good way for regional directors and producers to be able to come together and get that high-end industry exposure, and even just professional development with commissioning editors, and tech funding bodies. All of those things that are readily available in the city with the centralised offices, but they aren’t usually available to regional practitioners.
Beyond the actual pitching day, from what I’ve been experiencing so far has been great professional development, and mentorship. Reps from AIDC and Screenworks have really been coaxing the best work out of the teams that have been selected for the regionality pitch. There’s also been a great initiative called Rough Cut, who provide feedback for the teams to help improve their pitch in the eyes of an audience of commissioning editors.
I understand there is a live pitching process. How do you think that process might further develop the skills of regional filmmakers?
“I guess it’s a rite of passage. I’ve only really done it once in a professional setting to an audience and that was at an AIDC event way back in Adelaide when they started over there. But yeah, you’re getting thrown into the deep end in a way where you’re putting your heart and soul into the world, you’re offering it to the gatekeepers of those worlds and people that are used to having projects across their desk 100 times a week. I think the professional development comes in, and mentorship leading up to the actual day. And then on the actual day, I imagine it’s really just pulling it all together. And then having the ability to have the seven minutes of feedback, which I think is going to be really insightful, hopefully. Also, there’s going to be one on one interviews or pitching and putting together little segments for various teams with various heads of the organisation.
You’ve almost finished your film The Road to Patagonia which will be featuring in the event. Can you tell us a bit about what the film is about and when you can expect it to come out?
“The logline is it’s about two young adventurers whose lives change forever when they meet and fall in love on an epic surf odyssey where they learn about the ancient animistic worldview and its arch-nemesis the global economy. As far as being almost finished, we’ve got a rough cut, which we’re obviously a long way down the road. The main crux of the film was shot over two and a half years on a journey that started at the very top of Alaska to the very southern tip of Patagonia. So, it was over 50,000 kilometres.
“We started off riding motorcycles, then we traded in the motorcycles and completed the journey on horseback. We went for six months unguided on horseback. Obviously, it’s an adventure film, it’s a love story. But the underlying premise of the film throughout that two-and-a-half-year journey, we interviewed a whole range of indigenous communities from the very northern tip of the Americas to the southern tip. We found a really strong unified philosophy, without trying to speak for those indigenous communities. I think they’d tell it a lot better than what I do. But this animistic theme of being connected to country is really prevalent.
“Then in the editing process, as I’m sure you’re aware, documentary editing, especially one that’s of this nature that wasn’t really prescribed from the beginning, you can kind of be pulling your hair going ‘well, I know what the story is, because I can feel it in my heart, but how do I relate this to an edit?’
“I think an interesting aspect of it came to light. I’ve made some short films over in a really remote part of Sumatra called the Mentawai Islands in the years leading up to this journey. Also, I’ve lived in those islands for five years, not exclusively, but with the traditional hunter gatherer tribes; quite closely with those guys for over those five years. And there was a bit of an epiphany moment with this mystic philosophy and the backstory of Sumatra, which then led to the journey being started.”
You spoke about the indigenous cultures and different places this project took you. Why do you think that theme of bringing the natural world and cultures to urban communities so important for you?
“I think it’s important to me because it changed my life. I spent seven years in total over in Indonesia, and then a lot of that time was living in a little unpowered hut without internet without fridge or electricity. So, I feel like that changed my life personally. But the reason why I feel compelled to bring this kind of story to the screen is because, even though a lot of documentaries do focus on environmental issues and indigenous rights, it’s definitely not the first thing to be doing that. But we are still talking about a minority worldview that is undoubtably fading in the face of the world’s mainstream progress narrative. What was in the past was inferior to where we are now and that, via our technology and via our ingenious systems that we live in now, we are generating the apex human experience into the future.
I struggle to take those words from the people that we’ve interviewed along the way, but I think it’s so clear that, yes, we have developed technologically and scientifically to an amazing point where we are right now.
“Only last weekend my pregnant partner Heather who I met on this journey, she was in hospital, and it was modern medicine, that healed her and potentially saved her and our unborn child. She was in there for five days, and so there’s no part of me that’s like trying to hurl shit at the modern world. It’s not that.
“I think, throughout all these experiences, these years of living with, interviewing and meeting and experiencing all these different cultures, and a lot of them being ancient cultures in a way that still exists in a modern context, I think I’ve come to realise that our civilised world hasn’t taken into account the aspects of First Nations cultures that have a lot to offer our own. So, it could be in relation to the environment, it could be in relation to community, or even storytelling in the context of what you’re talking about now.
“I think that’s the underlying premise. And so, it’s not really an overt explanation so much in the film, but more of like a felt experience.”
Given it was such an epic journey to film, do you remember how many countries you visited to film it all?
“The journey was two and a half years, the footage from Indonesia was from 15 years ago. I think in all, if we look at the entire film including the backstory and the epilogue, we’re looking at 15 years span of footage as well as 15 different countries the film was shot in. Four different languages. Countless First Nations groups that are offering different perspectives.
“The main journey, that I mentioned was the crux of the film, was two and a half years.”
What do you hope to achieve with the film? And what would you like people to take away from that from it when they get a chance to see it?
“On a practical sense, we’re working with the Surfrider Foundation, which is a global foundation tied to surfing conservation. As far as what people take away from the film, I hope the takeaway that the world is still really beautiful. At the end of the day, this is primarily a love story between two people, but probably more so it’s a love story about the world and being alive. So, I hope there can be a bit of inspiration around that. And on a deeper level, I hope people might, through that easy lens of love and adventure, potentially question where they’ve come from, how we live now and where we could potentially be living into the future.”
REGIONALITY will be held at Lennox Head Cultural Centre in northern NSW on Friday 25 June 2021. More info: aidc.com.au/initiatives/regionality
