How do you navigate a relationship when one partner gender-transitions?
When they started filming Girl Like You, documentary makers Frances Elliott and Samantha Marlowe had no idea it would take six years to complete. But the film traces a relationship in which one partner transitions gender, and Elliott says that process can take a long time – potentially a lifetime.
Girl Like You, which was named winner of the major Australian Writers’ Guild Award (or AWGIEs, as they are known) on Thursday night, tells the story of Perth-based couple Elloise Walsh, the transgender protagonist, known as Elle, and her partner, Lauren Black.
Stills from ‘Girl Like You’, by Frances Elliott and Samantha Marlowe.
It’s an insight into the joy and challenges of two young people grappling with how to make their relationship work despite extraordinary challenges. The subjects are close friends of the filmmakers and allowed them almost unlimited access – disputes about which feature in the documentary.
And it was this access that allowed Elliott and Marlowe to honestly depict a story which wasn’t frequently being told. Back in 2014, when the 31-year-old documentary makers started filming, Caitlyn Jenner was the most public advocate for the trans community. There was so little information available about what it was like to be trans, let alone to transition, says Marlowe.
Frances Elliott and Samantha Marlowe, filmmakers and winners of the major AWGIE award for 2022.
“A large part was that we wanted to know Elle’s story, and we wanted there to be visibility,” she says. “Elle wanted to make the documentary because there wasn’t any content that mirrored her experience. She wanted to create a piece of content that other trans people could look at and draw from.”
“[Elle] sees this doco as one patch in a quilt of many, many experiences; not everyone will relate to all of them, but some people might.”
The film was also created so that people outside the LGBTQ community could understand what being trans might look like: “We wanted to tell this as a love story. Putting [forward] those universal themes was a really good way to make the wider community have a human connection.”
Best friends and business partners, Elliott and Marlowe have made several other short documentaries including The Beeman, about a bee conservationist who can communicate with honey bees, and another called Capturing the Fire, about a childhood friend whose house burnt down almost killing her and her family.
But Girl Like You is their first feature and their greatest success to date. The day after Marlowe and Elliott were shortlisted for an AWGIE, one of the big streaming networks made contact with the filmmakers to say they wanted to feature the documentary on their lineup. Discussions are still underway.
Claire Pullen, executive director of the Australian Writers’ Guild, says the AWGIEs are a celebration of the very best of Australian performance writing. “It’s a chance for Australian writers to get together and celebrate the great stories they are telling and the work they do together,” she says.
“The scripts are presented blind, so you don’t know who has written them; what this shows is that there is an excellence and an abundance of stories all through our community.”
“From a cultural point of view, it’s incredibly important that we talk about who we are. We have a really strong Australian sense of humour and sensibility that is really fun to see on our screens and on our stages,” she says.
Pullen says members regularly call her from overseas, particularly from LA and London, and say ‘I’m working on this project or that project, but I wish I could make this at home’. She cites one example of a show that is filmed in Melbourne, but the writers’ room is in LA.
“If the industry here was supported appropriately, we could have all that work happening here, by Australians,” she says.
Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.
Most Viewed in Culture
From our partners
Source: Read Full Article