Such an honour
Last year, Screen Australia and the ABC put out a call for proposals from filmmakers for a new initiative, Love Bites, in recognition of the 40th Anniversary of Mardi Gras and the LGBTIQ community.
Love Bites was to be a series of ten five-minute documentary short films, its content, tone and style of the short film left entirely up the creator.
The proposal sent in by The Sweet Shop’s Logan Mucha was chosen.
Mucha’s Love Bite
Mucha’s Love Bite is the story of Dani Boi, a non-binary dragtivist who has taken on the mission of fighting back against oppressive gender norms. It is not a traditional documentary. It is one worthy of both the unique aims of the project and the unique subject.
Image by Gunay Demirci
“I wanted to experiment with a contemporary documentary approach to do justice to the story. This meant capturing Dani’s live drag performances with the seething energy of a punk concert, then contrasting that against more intimate, cinematic portraits,” Mucha explained.
Boi lives and works in Melbourne, but the genderfluid Sri Lankan performer began exploring their relationship to sexuality and gender while living in San Francisco. After winning a lip-sync battle, Dani adopted the persona, Dani Boi, and began to use drag as a tool to challenge oppressive gender norms.
Mucha was put in touch with Dani Boi through mutual connections. “We met for a drink and instantly hit it off. I was as much captivated by their provocative onstage performances as I was by their personal life, and I wanted the documentary to reflect these two sides of them.”
So while Mucha’s film explores Dani’s radical drag performances and how they use it as a political tool to challenge and confront our views of gender, it is equally about how Dani Boi’s performance art makes his culture visible to the wider community.
The making of a documentary as unique as its subject
“We decided to shoot a lot of the content with a dreamlike quality by constructing little scenes of Dani’s life off stage,” Mucha stated.
“The scenes were shot in slow motion and at times used vibrant coloured gels to illuminate different environments. This helped create a bold and contemporary palette and feel. I wanted the story to be intimate and personal, so Dani narrates the whole film as a voiceover to guide the viewer from scene to scene.”
To create the story, Mucha spent an afternoon with Dani, interviewing them about all aspects of their life: their history, relationships and art. He transcribed the interview and cut it down to a 5-minute script, which was then used to help shape and construct the material he wanted to shoot.
“I wanted a contrast between the chaos of their performance art and the more meditative and reflective world of their personal life. So, we enlisted Dani’s partner and father to help bring this to life. We also conducted a series of 10 stylised video portraits with the non-binary community, shot in their homes, public spaces and even a street protest. While this took significant time to cast, source locations and shoot, they play an essential role in the film and provide a sense of scope and intimacy to the documentary.”
The whole shoot was carefully planned and structured by Mucha. “I knew exactly what material I wanted in the edit, but it was important we still allowed time for some little spontaneous, magic moments to unfold. For example, there were lots of special spontaneous moments between Dani and their father that really showed the support and love in their relationship.”
Instinct and adaptability were demanded
“We were extremely organised and planned with our approach, so we didn’t really have any hiccups. But I was also overly ambitious with what we were trying to achieve and the budget we had. We had to rely on our instincts a bit and be adaptable when shooting the live performances. These shoots had lots of tight spaces and some rowdy energetic crowds to work around. But in the end, my DOP used this energy and captured some amazing material. Luckily, we had an amazing crew who were committed to the concept and the story.
“I give a special shout out to my DOP, Daniel von Czarnecki, who has always been a great sounding board for ideas. He has an amazing ability to interpret my vision into something achievable. And my producer, Zena Bartlett, was amazing in never compromising my vision and working tirelessly to pull everything together.”
Every film is a lesson in filmmaking
“I continue to develop my approach of working with real people and how to explore their stories in more visual and cinematic ways. I think there’s already so much innate drama and emotion when working with real people stories and I love being able to explore different approaches to representing them onscreen. Also, with our limited budget I learned more about maximising your available resources to get the best material on screen.”
Using the magic of music
“We were fortunate enough to work with an amazing musician and composer, Ryan Caesar. He was given a brief to create two compositions that reflect the two sides of Dani / Dani Boi. He created a beautiful atmospheric ambient track that guided us through Dani’s personal life without overpowering the voiceover, while transitioning into a chunky dance track that perfectly captured the energy of Dani Boi’s onstage performances. Ryan was a dream to work with and really helped to create the spine of the film that pulled all the visuals together.”
A surprise gift – the Surprize ending
“It was quite special that our last shoot was for a community portrait with Kindred Surprize. Same-sex marriage legislation had just passed through parliament, so Kindred asked if we could film them at an impromptu celebratory rally through Melbourne’s CBD. It was a great way to cap the shoot by filming such a significant moment in Australia’s queer history.”
The whole process of filming the documentary was eye-opening and we personally learnt a lot about the non-binary community. I hope we have managed to give them more visibility because of this film.
Credits:
Crew
Director: Logan Mucha
Producer: Zena Bartlett
Cinematographer: Daniel Von Czarnecki
Editor: Carly-Anne Kenneally
Assistant Editor: Logan Mucha
Sound Recordist & Mixer: Gunay Demirci
2nd Unit Camera: Lucas Brown
1st Assistant Camera: Anthony Rilocapro
Gaffer: Joel Green
Colourist: Ciara Gallogly
Titles Designer: CJ Rhodes
Stills Photographer: Gunay Demirci
Composer: Ryan Caesar
Featuring
Dani Weber / Dani Boi
Ben Harberts
Mario Weber
With
Archie Boulter, Callan, Cynthia Sobraty, Fury, Glitterfist, Joanna Laheaux / Joshua Coles-Braun, Kindred Surprize, Mama Alto, Marc Carrabs, Nevo Zisin, Priya Kunjan
Special Thanks
Panavision, Savage Lighting, Hugh Turral, Aaron Farrugia, Club 86, Honcho Disko, Taint, Six Inches Uncut, Hares & Hyenas, The Butterfly Club, Peril Magazine, City Of Melbourne, Artplay, Gemma Giles, Melbourne Museum
Funding:
Produced With The Assistance Of Film Victoria
Love Bites Is An Initiative Of Screen Australia And The Australian Broadcasting Corporation
ABC Executive Producer: Jo Chichester
Investment & Development Manager, Documentary: Alyssa Orvis
Mucha graduated rom the Australian Film, Television and Radio School in 2012 and has been making bothj commericals and short films since.
His feature debut documentary, East Bloc Love, explored LGBT rights across Eastern Europe, focusing on a small group of activists in Minsk, Belarus. The film had its world premiere at the 2011 San Francisco International Frameline Film Festival and has since screened at a number of festivals including Amnesty International’s Movies That Matter. It won Best Documentary at the Merlinka Film Festival, Belgrade.
Mucha has also won Best Australian Short at the Human Rights Arts & Film Festival in both 2014 and 2017.
He has directed commercials for Myer, Tourism Western Australia, Audi and Woolmark as well as documentaries for Snowdome and Vice.
