Before moving to documentary filmmaking, Christy Garland directed several award-winning dramatic and comedic shorts, while working in the film industry as an assistant director. The Canadian director helmed the award-winning doc “The Bastard Sings the Sweetest Song.” “Cheer Up” is her third feature documentary. She is currently shooting “What Walaa Wants” in the West Bank. (Press materials)
“Cheer Up” will premiere at the 2016 Hot Docs Film Festival on May 1.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
CG: It’s a film about the pressure to win, and how we define success for ourselves, and what actually makes for a meaningful life in our culture of accomplishment, contests, talent shows, etc.
It follows Miia, the loving coach of a team of cheerleaders. They live up on the Arctic Circle in Finland. And as competitive cheerleaders, they sort of suck, unfortunately.
And she’s sick of losing and not being taken seriously. But while she and her team get busy pushing themselves towards being number one, life happens to her and Aino and Patricia, two of her most troubled cheerleaders, and it becomes a question of what will be more important to you when look back in years time — a plastic trophy or something else you went through that made you who you really are?
W&H: What drew you to this story?
CG: A combination of elements, but primarily a desire to counter the dominant characterization of young women in culture and reality TV right now that is mean-spirited, reductive, competitive, and shallow. Of course, people do find the idea of cheerleaders entertaining and charming, but I wanted to use that as a way to upset those expectations and underestimations, by instead delivering a sensitive, serious look at the complicated real lives of young women.
And when I met them, they seriously looked like the most melancholy cheerleaders I’d ever seen, and I thought it would be a beautiful metaphor for the expectations young women face to look beautiful, happy, and good at everything when inside you actually feel a bit like a train wreck. And I wanted to make an alternative to the “no guts, no glory” narrative we’re all familiar with.
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?
CG: Hopefully the film sticks with them and has a similar effect the experience of the film has had on me — questioning what I hold to be my definition of “making it” and trying to be a bit more aware of the things in my life that are less illusory and actually exist now, like the friends and family I love and who support me no matter what I accomplish. Maybe it’s a mid-life crisis love letter to my younger self.
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
CG: I loved the idea of making a serious, poignant film that completely upset what people would expect in a film about cheerleaders — but it made it a very difficult film to pitch. People either assumed it’s a very superficial film about a silly American sport, or worse, people loved it because they thought it was the documentary equivalent of a hilarious and fun Hollywood film about cheerleading.
It was hard to make people understand that is was a serious, sensitive film that used the wrapping of cheerleading as a way of upsetting expectations.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
CG: We followed our characters for three years, traveling up to the Arctic Circle around 13 times, and to Texas as well, so it was expensive.
I was lucky to be working in Finland where there is a healthy funding system in place for documentary filmmakers, and the producer Liisa Juntunen was good at raising money early for development, something not all that possible in Canada.
It was a Finnish/Canadian co-production — and for the Finnish portion of the budget, we were very lucky to have great support from the Finnish Film Foundation, MEDIA, AVEK, and numerous other Finnish and European sources. Even with so many Canadian creative elements, that side was much harder to finance, but a television pre-license from Superchannel, and the Hot Docs/Shaw Media Fund were a huge help.
W&H: What’s the biggest misconception about you and your work?
CG: To be honest I’m not aware of any conceptions of my work, but if I had to guess, it’s possible that my films, in the documentary world, are under-estimated because so far they have not been about urgent current political issues, but rather very intimate human stories found in odd places that aren’t terribly topical.
And I love making films that set up — and then upset — expectations, surprising audiences with a depth they didn’t expect. But that approach makes my films hard to describe: You really have to see them before you get it.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
CG: Worst: Although this is good advice for many filmmakers, and of course there are wonderful films that do just this, I had someone tell me that if I wanted to succeed I had to make documentaries about famous people. My entire reason for making films is to do the exact opposite.
Best: Well this sounds a bit contradictory because it involves a bit of cheesy name-dropping, but I used to despair when I was younger and struggling to make my first films because as I was building my confidence and figuring out why I was making films, I didn’t have much bravado and was a lousy schmoozer.
And you kept hearing all these stories of ballsy filmmakers who had done one okay short film, networked like hell, and then Presto! Some heavy hitting director or producer is now their best friend and gives them a break and now they’re making their first feature and look how easy it is for this talented person! But of course it isn’t and for whatever reason that never ends up being as sure a thing as it looks.
At the time I was scraping together money for expensive 16mm work prints for my first crappy short films, working as a production assistant on a Sidney Lumet film, and I told him I felt pressured by this and he said something like this:
“Forget all that bullshit. If you want to be recognized for your work, this is a lifelong craft that takes time, trial and error, and many films. Just concentrate on making the best films you are capable of making and you’ll build something more solid, something of your own, to stand on.”
It’s not like I was best friends with Sidney Lumet! But I was doing fire watch on set during lunch and he happened to be sitting alone on the set, and we had this one little chat. I still think of it when I feel sorry for myself, think I’m getting passed over, or no one appreciates my work or self-defeating, indulgent thinking.
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
CG: They’re cliches but they could not have been more true for me:
Find your tribe.
And the only thing you have that no one else can touch is your own weird sensibility informed by your own unique experiences — so find out what that is and be true to it while you keep getting better at making films, and get started now and don’t wait for permission or funding or whatever the hell it is you’re waiting for.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
CG: “Democrats” by Danish director Camilla Nielsson.
The topic would seem very un-cinematic on paper — political rivals in Zimbabwe collaborating on the drafting of a constitution. But she made a fascinating, accessible, exquisitely well-crafted observation of the fragility of a fledgling democracy. It’s a brilliant, important film.
