Interview With Joshua Lee, Director Of THE FATHERING PROJECT

Joshua Lee’s social documentary The Fathering Project begins with a deceptively delicate question: How can you be a good father, if you’ve never had one? Filmed over a single school semester, Lee’s concise snapshot is first and foremost an intimate illustration of the collective trauma present in the streets of Armadale, one of Perth’s most violent suburbs that is scorched by daily occurrences of drugs, suicide, crime and violence. Driven to understand why statistics around suicide, depression, addiction and incarceration were tipped so heavily towards men from similar lower socio-economic backgrounds, his research leads him to the front door of The Fathering Project, which pivots the director’s solo odyssey into a cumulative presentation of Australia’s undervalued cultural heterogeneity and modern masculinity.

Ahead of the film’s premiere on Compass on ABC1 at 6.30pm on Sunday 12 July 2020, I had the chance to talk with Joshua Lee about the film’s inception, piecing the story together, the major lessons he learned and his most difficult day of shooting.

Alex Lines for Film Inquiry: How did The Fathering Project begin as a documentary?

Joshua Lee: I was doing my Masters in Documentary at AFTRS in Sydney. The course was very intensive, with only two of us in the documentary stream. We were pushed to examine a topic of deep personal significance. It became an obvious choice having never met my own father to consider fatherhood as a research topic. I also thought it was an ideal time to explore masculinity.

At this stage in time the roles and expectations of men are shifting constantly, so I wanted to try make sense of that. So during my studies I began interviewing people around the country on this topic. One of the interviews was with the then CEO of the Fathering Project Wayne Bradshaw. When he told me about the At Risk program they were hoping to run in Armadale, I knew I had to make a film about it.

Can you talk about your history as a documentarian, what type of stories do you find yourself attracted to?

My films in some form or another always tend to deal with either masculinity or class (usually both). Generally they involve a male protagonist (or several) coming to terms with the limitations of his way of being in the world. I’ve also noticed a tendency to look at the way men deal with pain, both personally and in a community context.

I have however started veering away from this recently and exploring more journalistic topic based films. I recently did a project on North Korean tourism and another series of short films on the topic of sustainability.

What was the process like editing the various threads, including your own, into a narrative?

Editing the stories of the Fathers and the program was quite seamless. I had enough material for a feature, and knew each character’s material so well. So it was really just a matter of choosing the most relevant and refining their archs. My own narrative thread was much more difficult. It was a real blind spot for me in the edit.

I had to rely a lot on others to push through my own resistance of including myself in the film and also to gain a sense of how my character arch was working. It wasn’t until the last week of the edit that I shot my own final scenes, which reflects just the challenge of realising myself as a character in the film.

From yourself to your various subjects, there’s an incredible level of intimacy in this documentary; everyone is so open and candid, how did you go about building these relationships and that level of trust with everyone involved?

I simply used my own story to break down the barriers with the characters. When meeting the fathers in Armadale, I would tell them: I’m Josh, I grew up fatherless and it’s put me on this journey and led me here. This was incredibly disarming and allowed people to know they could trust me to share their stories in a sensitive and responsible way.

I think it’s always been one of my filmmaking strengths to gain access and it also comes from having a genuine interest in the topic you are exploring and the people who are telling the story. Another element was choosing to shoot on small mirrorless cameras with small zoom mics. This was a deliberate choice to not appear like a big production crew and allow the characters to feel minimal disruption.

Have you been in touch with any of the subjects involved since finishing the film? What was their reaction?

Yes, the first person I showed the complete film to was Traverse – the protagonist of the film. I went to his house and watched it with him and his 2 sons. It was quite a powerful experience, they all cried throughout the film and I left feeling that we had done something special together. That perhaps this film could help people.

I have also remained in close contact to David Walker the facilitator. We’ve had dinner and met for coffee many times. He’s been a great support and inspiration for me personally. I have also stayed in touch with a number of people in Armadale and am working on another project there currently.

What would you identify as your most difficult day of shooting?

The most difficult day was the very first day of shooting. I walked down the main street of Armadale with the main character Traverse who began talking to people about fatherhood. The stories we heard were harrowing. A young indigenous man approached us and just broke down crying. He’d been denied access to his son at the local court that morning and had a gaping cut in his hand (self-afflicted).

Traverse embraced the man, then walked about a kilometre with him hand in hand in order to find help for him. It was a breathtaking act of compassion and probably one of the most powerful things I’ve ever shot. We couldn’t use the material in the film for ethical reasons, but it certainly assured me we were embarking on a very important topic that needed to be explored.

What were the biggest lessons, on both a personal and technical level, that you took away from the process of making The Fathering Project?

Technically – in terms of the actual filmmaking component I found quite easy. The real lessons for me came on the producing side. I produced it myself for the first 2 years (out of almost 3 it took to realise) before Alice Wolfe came on board, who was incredible.

Firstly gaining access to the story meant dealing with a number of organisations which demanded great sensitivity and ethical assurances. This required 6 months of work alone and at times looked unlikely I would gain the access. I was also based in Sydney at the time so flying back and forth on no budget was challenging.

After the film was shot I then had to find a way to get it to market. I didn’t really understand the industry, so it became an incredible apprenticeship for me learning to navigate the documentary world. I managed to used was contacts I had, and build new relationships to slowly get the film attention. I was selling off my camera gear to fly to Sydney to meet commissioning editors or fund new trailers. It was a very slow and painful process, but I’m proud to have realised the film and not given up when it seemed like the most obvious thing to do.

Film Inquiry thanks Joshua Lee for taking the time to talk with us.

For Australian viewers, The Fathering Project is set to premiere on Compass on ABC1 at 6.30pm on Sunday 12 July 2020.