Diverse Voices: Kathleen Winter

Visual: Filmmaker Kathleen Winter sits in a dark room with studio lights on her. She is wearing a black shirt and a large amber necklace. Throughout the interview, we switch from one camera angle to another. One where the camera is zoomed to focus on her chest upward, with her head being the focal point. The other is zoomed out more, showing a table with interesting objects on it, such as a pink spiky ball, teapots, oranges, and candles. A hand places a card on a silver tray with her name on it.

Audio: I was just pitching to a few people, including the makeup artist, that one of my dreams is to work with Sam Neill. And I’ve actually, I shouldn’t say this publicly, actually, this is really embarrassing I’ve got a role for him. I’ve written a script and I’ve got a role that’s specifically for him. Yeah, so directing Sam Neill, and also I really wanna work on Country Calendar.

Hello, my name is Kathleen Winter. I mostly grew up in the Manawatu, like, real middle New Zealand.

Yeah, I’ve been in Pōneke, Wellington, for the last decade, so I kind of call it home.

Thinking about how to talk about diversity, I really appreciated the first conversation that we had about this. Where we both acknowledged that we kind of hate the word ‘diversity’, to be honest. And I think that’s common for most people who are kind of put in diverse (“diverse”) boxes.

We’re working in an industry in a society, which has very strict norms. I mean, I don’t think I always saw myself as an “outsider”.

Like, I have the massive privilege of being Pākehā in New Zealand and it was only, I think, going through film school and the sexism was...wild. We hadn’t had a chance to prove ourselves, so we were kind of like given roles and all the women were given, like, makeup and wardrobe.

And I remember some of my classmates being like, “I don’t even...I don’t wear makeup. I’ve never done makeup in my life.” But like, because they were a woman, that’s what was happening, in the film industry.

I started making more documentaries and I started making more stories that were just about the people around me. And that meant that my work became more queer. Like, as a member of the queer community, it means that those are the people in my life, and those are the stories that I’m excited about telling.

We’re at a time where diverse voices are getting a lot more opportunities and being celebrated. But it’s also like who has the ability to give us those opportunities? And who also benefits from our storytelling?

I was pitching a few short documentaries and I had some like *really good stuff*, like not to brag, but I was pitching some very good ideas. But none of them were queer, just, you know, they just happened to be documentaries based on other communities. Then at the end, they were kind of like, “Look, thank you for coming in, we love diversity, we’re really into ‘diverse diversity’, and we were just wondering if you have any, like, LGBT stories. Like, do you have any LGBT films you could pitch us?” And I was just like, “Oh, that’s why I’m here.”

You’re not interested in me as a filmmaker who happens to come with this identity and lived experience, which I can bring to my art. You’re interested in me as an avenue to a type of content which is currently trending.

That’s a very cynical way of reading it, but that’s how it did feel at that time. And I think it’s especially important when we’re talking about documentaries. Because when we’re talking about documentaries, we’re talking about real people’s lives and real communities, and then the filmmakers are the access to those communities.

Visual: Kathleen holds up a yellow piece of paper, it reads:

“We’re on screen... please join our timewarp! Premiere screening of a short doco by Kathleen Winter, 2:30pm Saturday 17 November, Ngā Toanga Sound and Vision, 84 Taranaki Street.”

She then holds a DVD of one of her films, called ‘Datastream’.

Audio: This is the little, like screening invitation for a very low-budget, tiny indie documentary that I made a number of years ago about a local print shop that was closing down. That was called Datastream Instant Print. This is a DVD of the film that the subjects of the film went and made themselves. So that felt like quite a beautiful experience. So what I’m working on right now is, the working title is ‘Nobody WINZ’...

[Interviewer offscreen: Ooh!]

... with a Z.

What I want to do in this case is raise awareness about the fact that our welfare system is, inherently deeply, deeply, broken. And to do that as a black comedy. So that’s a really cool experimental process, mostly for genre with me in terms of, like, how do we get that tonal balance of acknowledging the reality? But making it funny enough? But making it respectful of those stories...?

Visual: A clip of card paper shows, written on it the credits. These are written below:

• Producer, Writer and Director: Pachali Brewster.
• Director of photography, editor and colourist: Ben Dickens.
• Featuring:
  • Oriwa Hakaraia
  • Jade Jackson
  • Aditya B. Parige
  • Kathleen Winter
  • Laura Yilmaz
  • Casey Zilbert
  • Raqi Syed and Missy Molloy as the facilitators
  • Glen McLaughlin as the butler.
• Special thanks to:
  • Massey’s School of Music and Creative Media Production
  • College of Creative Arts Toi Rauwhārangi.
• Production manager assistant, 1st assistant director, and Unit: Anna Valentine.
• 2nd camera operator: Elise Lanigan.
• 3rd camera operator: Nathan Roys.
• Sound Recordist: Jessy McNamara.
• Sound Recordist Assist and sound mixer: Matt Asunder.
• Art Department: Glen McLaughlin.
• Hair and Makeup artist: Serena Parsons.
• Stills photography: Celeste Fontein.
• Runner: Ivy Robinson.