Film by Elaine Leong, Haylee McCormick & Ruby Bannerman

Flow explores the topic of menstruation, presenting it as a natural body function which may be aligned with other natural phenomena. Periods have traditionally been an uncomfortable topic for society as well as the media to grapple with, Flow ultimately aims to disassociate the menstrual cycle from this taboo, and re-associate it with other cyclic paradigms found in nature.

Click below for a Q&A with the filmmakers.

WHAT WAS YOUR TOPIC FOR THIS FILM?

For this project brief, Haylee and I originally wanted to focus on the topic of the Australian government’s tampon tax. Specifically, we wanted to critically examine the underlying attitudes responsible for designating a normal bodily function- menstruation- as somehow luxurious and taxable. However, after some discussion we refined our idea to a more general critique of the social stigmatisation of periods as a lived experience. We did so chiefly as we felt it was a more targeted and accessible approach which would allow for us to explore the topic from a variety of experiences not geographically tethered to Australia alone. Our pitch in class went quite well, and that’s when Ruby joined our group.

With the addition of another group member, we further solidified our topic choice through sharing our own personal lived experiences of being excluded, shamed, or othered in the public sphere for a normal bodily function. Perhaps most informative on our subject choice was also our own intersectional / Trans-inclusive Feminist values; a factor which influenced our decision to draw on a range of individuals from different ethnicities, socio-economic situations, lived experiences, sexuality, and gender identities. All identifying as women and having experienced periods ourselves, it became quite an introspective exercise to make the documentary, and that’s something which helped shape our fidelity and representation of the theme.

ANY DIFFICULTIES FACED DURING PRODUCTION IN YOUR APPLICATION OF ‘EXPERIMENTATION’ / POETICS ?

Some difficulties our group faced during Flow, revolve around technical aspects of our poetic experimentations with visuals. We wanted to generate a visual experience which did not directly correlate to the statements that were being made via the audio. We also wanted our visuals to reiterate our overarching contention that menstrual cycles are a natural part of life and should be treated by society and the media as such. Thereby we initially planned on projecting our found footage onto a pair of underwear on a white wall. Unfortunately the quality of the images were not displayed to their optimum level when projected. This was a major issue for our group as these visuals were intended to be used throughout the majority of the film. We managed to overcome this issue by adopting a mask of underwear, in the editing stage, and projecting the found footage through this.

For this film our team employed experimentation as well as poetics through most aspects of our documentary. In terms of audio, we experimented with splicing up different statements made by a selection of individuals who we had interviewed. We experimented further by trying out more ‘literal’ imagery, which corresponded with what the subjects were saying. In particular we tested this through the fruit footage that we shot ourselves. Some of the footage we gathered toyed with placing different fruits in different arrangements to represent scenarios, situations and people. Ultimately we found that this was not as effective as using imagery which wasn’t directly associated with the voices, however, we still incorporated the footage of the fruits being squeezed.

HOW DID THIS PROJECT CHANGE YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF POLITICAL AND POETIC DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING?

Making Flow, we developed a better understanding of how to use non-literal imagery in order to convey a message. Rather than selecting imagery that directly related to the topic being addressed we chose to focus on beautiful imagery of flowers and landscapes in order to develop a connection between periods and nature. This decision made the connection between politics and poetics come naturally, with a predominately political message being conveyed in a poetic way.

We also came to learn that less is more when addressing such a large topic. Between the three of us we collected around 45 minutes of interview audio so while cutting it we had to be ruthless, in the end having to omit statements we loved but ultimately didn’t fit in with the tone being established. By concentrating on few perspectives and being selective in what topics were addressed it became far easier to establish a connection between film poetics and politics.