Published: 22 October 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
She is not averse to complexity. From her first film to the most recently completed, Alone Together, through to another still in the works, about two gay men who married last year at the Emanuel Synagogue after 47 years together, she has sought out intimate subtle stories of adversity, and triumph over adversity.
Alone Together, which screens on October 27 at the Chauvel cinema in Paddington, opens with a baby’s protracted crying. It goes on longer than you’d expect, and is quite distressing, unbearable even. We learn straight away that babies who are not picked up and held in early life will have developmental issues - and may even die.
In Israel, she said, hundreds of babies are abandoned, usually by women addicted to drugs. Sometimes, those born very ill are left in hospital by parents who can’t cope.
Ravit, a “first hug volunteer”, is the centrepiece of the film. When Hay-Gillor and her co-director, Maya Tiberman, read about First Hug - an association for abandoned babies – her initial thought was: “Who could do this? Be captivated by a baby and then have to say goodbye, and every day to leave him/her in hospital… Sometimes they don’t even have time to say goodbye, sometimes it’s a call from a social worker to say, good news, the baby has been found a home.”
They heard lots of stories, one from a volunteer who was herself abandoned, another who had left her teenage son with his grandmother and divorced husband. They had thought to tell a few, but Ravit’s was so compelling that it deserved a doco all its own.
[gallery columns="1" size="large" ids="31580"]
Fifty-year-old Ravit, who spends her nights with babies and her days serving meals to the homeless, had endometriosis when young and was rejected by her family for having a hysterectomy before having children. After the film’s Israeli premiere, Ravit’s sister thanked Hay-Gillor for seeing who her sister really is, saying that until then, they couldn’t understand her choices.
“Her character was very special. On the one hand, she had a lot of strength in her, she’s a big woman, with energy and ability and very powerful, but you can see also her wounded soul, very soft and sensitive. At first look, you imagine a different character, then she reveals herself.”
Ravit is offered a child to foster but decides not to. “She’d found a way of being a mother; this is how she can accomplish that feeling. It’s not the way we know, but this hug works for both sides. She brings the best of her, it’s for herself as well. She spreads her love everywhere.”
Hay-Gillor says all her films are connected by characters who may all be “sad and mad but decide to control their lives and live them and not complain. I’m so amazed by those people, they choose and take responsibility for life.”
[gallery columns="1" size="large" ids="31581"]
Her directorial debut, How Much Love (2010), was made just after high school and was about how her own parents coped with her father’s war injury and also muscular dystrophy. “They’re still together and good. When I was young, he was walking a little funny, and it got worse and worse. I started, and was attracted to film more and more.
“He was handsome, a sport teacher and I was curious to explore how she deals with her situation. Now he’s in a wheelchair.”
After that came All That Remains (2015), about a woman of 56, a scientist who had cancer and instead of being sad and depressed, planned a way of separating from the world. She made a file in her computer of tasks she wanted to accomplish, among them a story for the grandchildren she hadn’t yet had, and planting plastic flowers in the garden because she knew her family wouldn’t water.
Then came Shockwaves (2018), three stories of families whose loved ones were injured, one in a terror attack. Living in Israel, she says, you often hear stories from the injured person’s viewpoint. They are usually heroes, but so are the family who have to deal with difficult situations.
Hay-Gillor says all her films are connected by characters who may all be “sad and mad but decide to control their lives and live them and not complain".
“One that was very controversial was a woman who chose to divorce her husband, which is something you don’t do - many people condemned her, but I wanted to show her perspective. He was in a coma for almost two years and there was no hope something would change.
“She saw the care of her children above all – she found herself also very sad and desperate; children feel everything and she couldn’t pretend. If she would live for his rehab, she won’t be able to do both.” The man now lives at home with his parents.
Sometimes, she says, a film will turn out quite different from what she anticipated because the people have something different to say. The current project, with the working title of Past Continuous, started after she was asked by The Jewish Independent to film the wedding of Ilan Buchman and Oscar Shub – Australia’s first religious Jewish same-sex marriage - at Emanuel Synagogue in May 2018.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uqn9RGwMcA[/embed]
“I thought I was coming to film a ‘gay wedding’ but it was a traditional wedding. I expected it to be unique and colourful, but the only difference was that there were two grooms under the chuppah instead of one.
Hay-Gillor’s video of the wedding struck an immediate chord within the Jewish and gay communities. It went viral and travelling around the world. The ceremony also lit a flame within her.
“This ordinary wedding made me see things in the simplest and most painful way, see that it should have happened a long time ago, and in every other religion and culture. In any film, the characters I make the film about, a little bit I fall in love, a kind of crush.”
The director may have fallen in love with Ilan and Oscar but production houses have been harder to convince. Past Continuous is not yet fully funded and she will use the screening of Alone Together as a fundraiser for this new project.
“It’s a very difficult and long process to raise budget from TV channels and film funds, especially in current times. You have to come very prepared. It’s not enough to have a 'must tell' story to tell. You have to prove it, present it well and show excellent edited footage as well. That takes time and money.
“Additionally, once you have started filming it’s very hard to stop. That is because reality won’t wait for me to finish raising the budget. The characters are alive and they keep on going. Therefore, I have to be very creative in that field as well.”
Alone Together screens at 4.30pm on October 27 at the Chauvel cinema in Paddington, Sydney. A Q&A with the director will follow the screening. BUY TICKETS
Donate to Past Continuous here
READ MORE
Making history: Australia’s first religious Jewish same-sex wedding (The Jewish Independent)
