Born in South Korea and raised in Australia, Unjoo Moon has directed and produced many award winning short films, music videos, commercials, and documentaries which have screened internationally at film festivals, and on network television. Her credits include feature documentary “The Zen of Bennett,” and PSA video on gun violence, “The Wrong Side of History.” “I Am Woman” is Moon’s narrative feature directorial debut.
“I Am Woman” will premiere at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival on September 5.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
UM: “I Am Woman” is the story of Helen Reddy, who wrote the song [of the same name] that galvanized a generation of women to fight for change and equality. In 1966 Helen arrived in New York with her three-year-old daughter, a suitcase, and $230. She had won a singing competition in Australia and thought she had a recording contract in America only to be told that because she was a woman the record label had no use for her. Within weeks she was broke, within months she was in love, and within five years she was one of the most successful female recording artists of her time.
Against all adversity Helen persevered to make her dream come true but to succeed she still had to battle the sexism of the time, the music industry, and even her own marriage to Jeff Wald who was also her manager. Theirs was an extraordinary love story set against a period of upheaval and change.
Helen’s close friendship with Australian rock journalist Lillian Roxon was crucial to the writing of [the song] “I Am Woman,” and the rise and tragic fall of their friendship is in some ways a metaphor for the struggles that besieged the women’s movement. But it was because of this friendship that Helen was inspired to write the words to “I Am Woman,” the song that would become an enduring anthem for all women.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
UM: I am not old enough to have ever attended a Helen Reddy concert, or to have known too many of the details of her career, but even as a young child I have vivid memories of the way my mother and her friends used to talk about Helen. The 1970s were a time of change – for everything. Fashion, music, food, politics, relationships, and, most importantly, the roles of women were being questioned and challenged. Women were having careers, becoming financially independent, and getting divorced.
Even then I knew that somehow Helen Reddy seemed to be an important part of all this change. When her songs came on the radio, my mother and her friends would immediately turn up the volume, wind down the windows in their station wagons, and let their hair loose in the breeze. And there were the rallies where women marched for equal rights and equal pay, and linked arms to sing and declare “I am woman, hear me roar.”
It wasn’t until later in life that I began to fully understand the impact of the women’s movement and how it fundamentally changed so many things for women all over the world.
Six years ago I was at an awards show in Los Angeles, and when I realized that I was sitting at the same table as Helen Reddy, I swapped seats with my husband so that I could sit next to her. I knew even before dessert was served that Helen had an extraordinary story, and that I just had to tell it.
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?
UM: I spent a year with Helen researching her story, and traveling with her on her 2014 comeback tour. During our conversations I was surprised by so many ordinary things that women weren’t allowed to do back then. Even though Helen was one of the most highly paid women in entertainment, when she went to get a mortgage the bank manager feared she might get pregnant and not be able to make repayments. Helen was one of the first women to get a credit card in her name – I had no idea at that time you had to use your husband’s name on most things.
It’s incredible the changes that women were able to make during the rise of feminism in the 70s but even after all that hard work, it’s frustrating that as women, we are still fighting and marching about some of the same things. I hope when people leave my film they feel inspired by Helen, her story, and her song, and want to go out and make changes. Here comes the revolution…
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
UM: We had a very tight shooting schedule for a period film with so many costume, hair, and location changes. We shot for 30 days in Sydney, Australia, and two-and-a-half days in Los Angeles. Plus we had to make Sydney believable as New York in the 1960s, and Los Angeles believable in the 70s and 80s. We also shot scenes [set] in Las Vegas and Washington DC, in Sydney. It was all on an indie budget which we stretched beyond belief.
We were shooting so many pages a day that there was very little room to change your mind once the path was set. Dion [Beebe, the film’s cinematographer, and Moon’s creative partner] and I would spend every night watching dailies, and then prepping the next shooting day so that we maximized our time on set. If there was any additional time in our day I always tried to give it to my actors so that we could work on developing the scenes together with the cameras.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
UM: We funded this film predominately out of Australia. I formed a partnership with Goalpost Pictures, which is led by producer Rosemary Blight. We were able to access script and production finance in Australia, including through the Australia’s Producer Offset, Screen Australia, and regional funding bodies. Australia has a very supportive government film funding environment.
Our sales agent, WestEnd Films, is headed by women, and have a fund called WeLove, dedicated to films directed by women, and they came in to support the film early on. A major key to our financing was a private fund we established with two women — Cass O’Connor and Tracey Mair — called the Goodship Women’s Fund, and we found investors who were aligned to the themes of Helen’s story to join us in this endeavor.
The majority of these investors were women, and were not only attracted to the story but the fact that it was directed, produced, and written by women. I mean really with all these women in key positions how could we not fund this incredible story!
W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
UM: When I was in elementary school in Australia, I thought my best friend, Jodi, had the coolest life. Her American mother was in a girl band in the 60s in LA, and we used to perform endlessly in the living room to their records. Her father was a television director, and we used to visit his set and meet the actors — an experience which has always stayed with me.
I grew up in a loving migrant family in Australia where becoming a doctor or lawyer was the big dream, and while I did end up going to a great law school, I always knew I was a storyteller. From the plays I would put on at school, to being on the high school debate team, to sneaking into theater classes in my undergrad arts degree. I was a great dinner guest with boundless tales of my life and travels, and I always knew that this was my passion but I didn’t know that being a filmmaker was ever an option for me.
I was so thrilled when I got a job as a television reporter because I thought being in front of the camera meant you shaped the story. Working at ABC TV in Australia, I quickly realized that producing and directing were ultimately what I was destined to reach for.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
UM: At the time I thought the worst advice I had ever received was from the wonderful Jane Campion who, after watching an award-winning short film that I had made, told me it was too dramatic, and that it would be better if I made a film about a Korean girl growing up in Australia. In that moment I was taken aback, and I wondered why she would have to assume that this was the only kind of story that I could possibly tell.
Looking back on it now, it is probably also the best piece of advice I’ve been given because I know now that what Jane was really saying to me is: make something that I truly understand and that is a unique vision from me.
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
UM: I would give similar advice: think about what makes your project something that only you could make, and that is a unique vision from you. It’s so complicated getting a film made, and a miracle when it happens so it’s important — especially as a first time director — that everyone firmly believes that no one else could tell your story better than you can.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
UM: “My Brilliant Career” by Gillian Armstrong. When I first saw it I just loved the story of Sybylla’s headstrong ways, and how deeply the film spoke to me as a young girl attending a very strict private girls’ school. Years later when I was at film school, I learned that Gillian — who was 27 when she directed the film — was the first woman to have directed a film in Australia since the McDonagh sisters in the 1930s, and she was the first Australian woman to have a film screened in competition at Cannes.
The film also launched Gillian into Hollywood where hardly any women were directing studio pictures at that time. I really admire the things she was able to do as a woman in the film industry.
Gill is now a great friend, and gave me the best advice when I was making “I Am Woman.”
W&H: What differences have you noticed in the industry since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?
UM: When I started developing I Am Woman,” I could never have predicted that a new wave of women’s marches would once again rise up around the world, and I certainly could not have foreseen the #MeToo campaign that would bring the conversation of sexism back into focus in such a powerful way. “I Am Woman” started as a beautiful, touching biopic about the queen of “house wife rock” and how her music captured the spirit of an era but has now become even more poignant and deeply relevant to a whole new generation of people.
After #MeToo and #TimesUp, everyone kept telling us how timely our story was but it was quite amazing when Rosemary and I first started putting this film together — it’s remarkable just how many meetings we were in, with rooms full of men who would tell us that they couldn’t finance this film because we didn’t have enough of an audience for a story like this. We hope to prove them wrong!
