Homo

As a filmmaker and actor, I've always been fascinated by the art of performance and how easy it is for acting to turn intimate. Actors spend so much time studying other people, borrowing gestures, voices and emotional rhythms in an attempt to appear more human. But this act of 'watching' has the power to awaken buried emotions in the person being observed. And this is where 'Homo' was born - through a murky dance between Mark and Rem, where the act of observing one another slowly reveals things neither man is prepared to confront.

'Homo' is based largely on my own personal experiences of a brutal friendship divorce, as well as that time I dated an actor who stole all my queer mannerisms for a queer role he booked. The film sits on this fine line between humour and honesty, and at first stirs the audience through it's light-hearted comedy before revealing deeper emotional truths hidden in the night. The film works to immerse audiences in the psychological terrain between Mark and Rem - every glance revealing an unspoken thought, and the shifting dynamics between the two, leaving audiences to move with the ebbs and flows of a road trip whose emotional layers reveal themselves afterwards. I wanted to explore this subterranean emotional layer — the confusing, raw psychic space between Mark and Rem where friendship, love and identity become difficult to separate.

Performances are key to the film, so I created the role of Performance Dramaturg which allowed me to shape the layers of character development for myself and Max Brown as actors, and provided a continual resource to the actors throughout the whole shoot. As a Director, I’ve always wondered why we rarely call for assistance in crafting performances, despite it being an emotional foundation of cinema, so having a Head of Department in charge of maintaining the energy of a performance and also an overseeing eye from rehearsals through production meant that we could shoot a variety of takes, trusting that we were shooting enough material to edit the performances in post. This also assisted me greatly during the scenes for which I had to simultaneously Direct and Act; I could trust the preparation we had done, but also give myself room to play in the moment as Rem.

For the production, we did an away shoot in Bilpin where the cast and crew stayed together at BigCi, an artist residency (that I had the honour of doing in 2021). I instilled a ‘studio’ mentality where we could respond to the environment in the moment, shooting scenic B-Roll around our planned scenes. As Homo is a road trip movie, I felt it was important to capture in-character driving B-Roll featuring Mark and Rem, and at times we would stop on the side of the road and take advantage of the gorgeous mountain landscapes that served as our backdrops. This gave us utmost freedom in post, with over 4 hours of footage to edit down and shape the performances. Sound Design fleshed out these natural worlds, bringing to life soundscapes influenced by the Australian summer. And the score, which features sonics as if a Pop-Punk Emo band recorded it, ties the whole film together, not only adding a ferocious energy to the long drive, but also teasing out the unspoken truths that Mark and Rem hide from each other.

Despite having such a strong emotional undercurrent, I wanted Homo to have cinematic simplicity. For me, the image of an Asian character against the rugged Australian landscape was already the most brilliant Special Effect we could strive for. When choosing what to shoot, I would focus on the actor’s faces - every micro-expression of desire and hurt was the most honest language we could speak. And this simplicity acts as the audience’s entry point into the world of contradictions that flow under the film - of Asian characters in the Australian bush, of Mark’s goal-oriented nature against Rem’s nostalgic craving, of modern iPhones in vintage country towns where time seems to be frozen in the distant past. Even the title of the film itself feels like an old ‘slur’ that was thrown around to tease queer people, but now reclaimed to be tongue-in-cheek. For me, navigating this tension between the simple and the contradictory is what defines our 30s - we’re more forthright and decisive with what we want, but more confused by the the constant shifting in our life’s foundations where careers change, lines between friendship and love start to erode, and we’re forced to redefine or re-label ourselves in new ways that fit our updated preferences.

At its core, I wanted Homo to honour the best of friends - the ones that survive all these changes, the ones who love you no matter what, and the ones who remain and grow with you. After all, friendship, where intimacy is 'chosen' between two people, can often be the deepest and most profound connection in our lives.