“Being female — being blonde — unfortunately can go against you sometimes,” a fresh-faced Kylie Minogue tells an interviewer in 1995. She’s just one voice among a strong chorus in Her Sound, Her Story, a new independent documentary that puts gender inequity in the Australian music industry under the microscope.

Opening the film with the footage of Minogue is a dispiriting reminder that female musicians have been fielding the same questions about gender for decades, but the historical nod also brings perspective to recent shifts. Premiering at the Human Rights and Arts Film Festival in Melbourne last month, the film has arrived at an opportune time: it’s come in the wake of the #MeToo movement, and the same year that the local music industry has made gender a major talking point.

Filmmakers Michelle Grace Hunder and Claudia Sangiorgi Dalimore say they have seen a change in the tone and scale of the discussion about gender since they began the project in 2015. “I think right now is the time that people are finally listening,” Hunder says. “The conversations I am having day to day with people are really exciting — they’re really open to hearing about this and open to change.”

Their Story

Hunder, a prolific music photographer, first started thinking about gender when she was undertaking a previous project, RISE, which documented the contemporary Australian hip-hop landscape.

After completing a large-scale photo book and leafing through her folio, Hunder found herself asking where all the women were. She started researching statistics, such as festival line-ups, and realised gender imbalance was prevalent across the entire music industry. Hunder tapped music video director Sangiorgi Dalimore on the shoulder and had a “very loose conversation” about undertaking a small female-centric photo and video project.

Three years later, the pair are sitting in Melbourne’s Retreat Hotel, discussing the final touches of Her Sound, Her Story, a feature-length film that includes around fifty interviews. Subjects range from industry stalwarts to emerging talent: Jen Cloher, Kate Ceberano, Tina Arena, Julia Stone, Emma Donovan, Mojo Juju, Ecca Vandal, Sampa the Great, Simona Castricum, Zindzi Okenyo.

“We both went really outside our comfort zones for this,” Hunder says. The project sparked a personal reckoning with gender dynamics for each filmmaker. “We were both very, very comfortable working with men for our entire lives,” Hunder explains. “This really pushed us to not only be comfortable, but to actually really embrace [female stories] as well, and to really enjoy being around other women.” Sangiorgi Dalimore agrees and says she has learnt to be much more “invested in female narratives”.

Throughout the film, interviews are threaded together thematically, cycling through discussions of low expectations, self-doubt, representation, motherhood and ageing. The experiences are so similar, it’s as if the subjects are speaking directly to one another. Sangiorgi Dalimore’s warm and candid interview style — she didn’t research subjects before interviews — provoked raw responses.

Challenging Unconscious Bias

The film deliberately steers clear of any #MeToo-style horror stories. The focus instead is on more subtle barriers that stem from an undercurrent of prejudice — what triple j presenter and journalist Zan Rowe calls the “casual bias” and “subtle sexism” that runs through the industry.

This idea is referenced repeatedly: pop legend Tina Arena speaks about being cast aside when she hit a certain age. Melbourne-based musician Mojo Juju remembers being told her queerness was “confronting”. Soul singer Clairy Browne speaks of sexualised online abuse.

It is mostly performers that appear, but there a few practitioners from behind the scenes of the industry, where the gender imbalance is rife, and in some ways, less visible or easy to measure. These voices offer keen insight. Audio engineer Anna Laverty tells of getting a phone call one day: Lady Gaga was in town and wanted to record with her. On recording day, Laverty was ushered out of the studio, assumed to be “the office girl or something”.

The film’s main goal is to let the subjects tell their own stories — it isn’t an Australian music history lesson, but it touches on recent events that will, hopefully, become lodged into our national music mythology.

In January this year, Melbourne band Camp Cope excoriated Falls Festival for shunting them onto an undersized stage and for the gender imbalance of the festival’s line up. The band members themselves are missing from the film — the filmmakers say this was due to scheduling, but they were also conscious of the band already having “done their bit”.

Generational Change

Hunder says the film is not aimed specifically at a female audience, and men who have seen it so far have been receptive. She also stresses that many men have supported each of the filmmakers throughout their careers.

“This is not about pointing fingers or being angry,” she says. “It’s just about being aware. Through awareness, that’s where the change can start.” Almost as if he had been waiting for a cue, a man at the table next to us starts playing music loudly on his phone — despite music already playing in the pub. Hunder and Sangiorgi Dalimore share side-long glances. Later, the man will lean over and ask provocatively if he can turn up the volume. “Awareness,” says Hunder again, “is the key.”

Female peer support is a key focus of the film, as is eliminating the idea of women being in competition. Hunder’s strategy is to “just get on with it and support each other and [let] women stop making it hard for other women.” She is confident that this is happening as part of a “generational change”. Sangiorgi Dalimore wants to see a “trickle effect in terms of inspiring younger women who want to be in any creative field.”

Following a preview screening of the film, there has already been a positive knock on effect: sound engineer Laverty has had several young women contacting her about work and mentoring opportunities; other people have simply expressed their gratitude in seeing themselves represented on screen.

A sweet scene as the film draws to a close features musicians Sampa the Great and Ecca Vandal performing together. There is no sense of rivalry between the pair. They strut across the stage — Sampa raps, Ecca sings. At another point, the two musicians are shown standing arm in arm, displaying utmost mutual respect and looking all the stronger for it.

You get the idea that Kylie would be proud.

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‘Her Sound Her Story’ is now available online. 

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Images by Michelle Grace Hunder