Visual storytelling and cultural roots: James J. Robinson on 'First Light'
Filmmaker James J. Robinson joins us to discuss his debut feature 'First Light,' which premieres at the Melbourne International Film Festival. Robinson opens up about his Filipino-Australian identity and how reconnecting with his roots shaped this deeply personal project, exploring themes of cultural heritage, belonging, and authentic representation.
We dive into James' transition from still photography to filmmaking, his philosophy of creating breathing room in visual storytelling, and the ethical considerations of portraying his cultural perspective as both outsider and insider. The conversation also explores his collaboration with lead actress Ruby Ruiz and how their shared experiences informed the film's nuanced exploration of faith and human relationships.
Transcript
You are listening to the we need to Talk About Oscar podcast.
Speaker A:And this is our conversation with James J. Robinson, writer, director of the film First Light, premiering at this year's Melbourne International Film Festival.
Speaker B:I always kind of felt like I was like a missing half or something.
Speaker B:And then as I've kind of grown up, I've tried to like reconcile these two parts of me and see how they can coexist.
Speaker B:I got to reconnect with my home country and with indigenous customs that I may not have otherwise had the time or resources to be able do.
Speaker B:And so for me, the film has served that purpose already.
Speaker B:And the rest of it now, the release and everything, it's, it's all just.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's all just an added extra bit of fun.
Speaker A:To start with.
Speaker A:A bigger question coming from a background in not only filmmaking, but still photography as well.
Speaker A:Now we are here talking about your debut feature.
Speaker A:As a photographer, you're often capturing or aiming to capture a single perfect moment.
Speaker A:And while that happens in filmmaking as well, at times you're building moments across time.
Speaker A:How did, or rather have that shift affected your approach to visual storytelling?
Speaker B:Yeah, I feel like with stills I was always trying to use it as, I guess, a testing ground for what would eventually be my filmmaking practice.
Speaker B:I always knew that I was planning on getting into film and photography was, is.
Speaker B:It was something I fell into photography and.
Speaker B:But I noticed as I was doing it, like, you know, like I'm still putting up sets, trying to come up with a sense of character, trying to think about lighting, trying to think about narrative whenever I was taking an image.
Speaker B:So it felt like a great place for me to, I guess just like practice and like, as you would know, like with filmmaking it's not easy to practice.
Speaker B:Like, you really need money to be making shorts.
Speaker B:And of course there's like more low key ways of trying it out.
Speaker B:But for me it felt like photography was just a great place to kind of like practice and learn.
Speaker B:So that eventually when I got to the stage of making my first film, I'd be able to kind of understand things a little bit better, know how to run a set set, know how to direct.
Speaker B:But you're right, like, the mediums are so different.
Speaker B:It's like it's a still moment in time versus, as Tarkovsky says, sculpting in time.
Speaker B:And all of a sudden then we're starting to think about like, God, what does that mean?
Speaker B:It's, it's so different for me because, yeah, you're right.
Speaker B:Like, it's like I find that perfect moment in photographs.
Speaker B:And then when it comes to filmmaking, there is just so much that can happen in between the beginning and end of a take.
Speaker B:And I just think, like, oh, there's just so much room for, like, life in there.
Speaker B:And then I think my approach to this film was that I just wanted some breaths, and I wanted it to be slow, and I wanted there to be room for people to think and feel and I suppose get into a bit of a meditative state to be able to reflect on the kind of questions that I was proposing with the film.
Speaker B:And so I think that was the difference in that photography.
Speaker B:It's always like, this is the perfect moment, as you say.
Speaker B:And then when going into filmmaking and taking shots, I'm like, there are moments within this, but I want to fill them in with some pregnant pauses and some breaths.
Speaker B:And so that was kind of my approach, I think.
Speaker B:And that's why there's a lot of long, slow takes in the film and our general kind of pacing and the editing.
Speaker B:So, yeah, it's very, very different.
Speaker B:But I'm very lucky because I feel like I really got to hone in on a lot of my skills through my photography work to get to this stage.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Now that you bring up takes, I'm incredibly curious whether your photography mean anything for the amount of takes you demand from yourself, your cast and crew?
Speaker B:Yeah, I think so.
Speaker B:I mean, I think it's just like holding a frame for a moment and letting it settle in.
Speaker B:It's like with photography, you have, you know, one frame and you can stare at it in an art gallery for hours or whatever and, like, let that one moment.
Speaker B:And then with film, we're kind of constantly, like, moving on to the next things.
Speaker B:And so with a lot of the takes, we wanted them to have enough room to breathe and also just take in what we're seeing.
Speaker B:And so much of that as well was, like, I guess, like, my inspiration for filmmaking.
Speaker B:I mean, a lot of it comes from literature, and a lot of it comes from a lot of the masters who do slow cinema.
Speaker B:And for me, when I watch these films that are quite slow, I just sit there and, like, I'm regulated and I'm relaxed, and I feel like I'm more able to kind of take in some questions and reflect, and sometimes I fall asleep.
Speaker B:Like, I remember when I was last at the Melbourne International Film Festival a couple of years ago, and I was volunteering, and I saw a Siming Liang film, Stray Dogs, and there are so many shots in that that just go for ages.
Speaker B:And you're sitting there and I fell asleep.
Speaker B:And it wasn't a criticism that I fell asleep.
Speaker B:I think it was actually.
Speaker B:I'm like.
Speaker B:I'm in a room filled with people, and somehow I've been regulated to the point where I can fall asleep.
Speaker B:And something about the film, like, entered my subconscious, and I can't even remember moments of it.
Speaker B:But I.
Speaker B:The parts that I do remember, it's.
Speaker B:They're, like, stuck in my subconscious because I was, like, kind of awake, kind of not awake for certain parts of it.
Speaker B:And I think that's.
Speaker B:That part of your brain is, like, where a lot of that, like, processing happens.
Speaker B:And a lot of these deeper philosophical questions can kind of, like, ruminate because they're not tangible.
Speaker B:I think that's the difference between literature and photography and filmmaking in that, like, with literature, you're trying to put words and concepts into sentences.
Speaker B:And it's like the second you start trying to describe spiritual or bigger things and putting them into words, you're instantly doing a disservice.
Speaker B:Whereas with photography and with filmmaking, you can explore these things and show them, but not necessarily tell people what it is.
Speaker B:So people can sit there and it can bleed into them in a particular way, or it could not.
Speaker B:But I think that's the magic of filmmaking and how it's married to photography is that you're not stating things in words, and that allows people to kind of breathe it in.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:And as far as, I don't know, ancestry goes, as a Filipino Australian filmmaker, how does your dual cultural perspective influence how you tell stories set in the Philippines?
Speaker A:Like, does it give you sort of, at the same time, an insider and an outsider's view, or how do you see it working?
Speaker B:Yeah, honestly, I think it's both.
Speaker B:I spent so much of my life, like, growing up and trying to figure out which one I was like, when I was young, I was, like, too Filipino to really exist in white circles and spaces.
Speaker B:But then in Filipino spaces, I was too white to kind of be fully included in the family in that way.
Speaker B:Then I always kind of felt like I was missing half or something.
Speaker B:And then as I've kind of grown up, I've tried to reconcile these two parts of me and see how they can coexist.
Speaker B:And that extends beyond just being, like, Filipino and Australian.
Speaker B:It's like, how do I reconcile wider, being, like, Western and being Asian?
Speaker B:And then how do I also reconcile, like, you know, having indigenous blood but then being settled in Australia where we're on stolen land?
Speaker B:Like, there's all these kind of, like, two things in me that are kind of always coexisting and kind of clashing with each other.
Speaker B:And then I've kind of found a way to, like, marry the two.
Speaker B:And then I think this film became the first time that I could externalize that marrying and so, so much with the Philippines was.
Speaker B:I mean, a.
Speaker B:It was a lot of spending time in the mountains and reconnecting with, like, the areas that my ancestral blood goes back to, and spending a lot of time with indigenous communities up there to learn about my heritage and learn about, like, pre colonial ways of thinking in the Philippines, which it's so beautiful that they can still exist because there are so many countries that have been colonized where that pre colonial thought has been completely eradic.
Speaker B:And in the Philippines, like, being able to reconnect with these groups and, like, learn about my heritage and learn about the philosophy that that side of my blood has been had for thousands and thousands of years.
Speaker B:I think when then going to the Philippines, like, I was trying to be like, what are the best parts of Australian filmmaking that I can bring here?
Speaker B:And obviously one of them is, like, funding.
Speaker B:It's like, we can come over and bring money and in the Philippines.
Speaker B:So many people go to the Philippines and international projects will shoot there because they can take advantage of cheap labor and they can take advantage of the fact that there aren't, like, rules around how many hours you can work in things.
Speaker B:And so one of the things we want to bring from Australia is like, okay, well, let's make sure we're paying people properly.
Speaker B:Let's make sure that we're working proper hours.
Speaker B:There's no way we can make a film that meditates on decolonization that doesn't actually follow through in the literal production of the film.
Speaker B:It would just become extractive and be at complete odds to what we're trying to say in the film.
Speaker B:And so, like, I was trying to find a way that I guess I could bring that gaze.
Speaker B:And also the thing that happens, it's very interesting.
Speaker B:I think one of the things that I found, I remember reading, I think it was when Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave came out and he was making a film about American history.
Speaker B:And there was something that everyone was commenting on being like, his perspective as someone who's British on America is, like, even stronger because his vision of America isn't, like, tainted by being raised under a particular dogma or a particular understanding of America.
Speaker B:America.
Speaker B:And so I think I tried to use that as A bit of a guide as well for the Philippines and being like, I guess, like, there are so many parts of the Philippines that when you grow up there, you don't necessarily see, like, you know, there's like stores on the side of the road that you just become accustomed to that they're so normalized, you don't see them.
Speaker B:And it's the same here in Australia.
Speaker B:Like, I don't look at, like, the buildings or anything anymore.
Speaker B:They're kind of just buildings to me.
Speaker B:And then whenever I travel, I realize that the way we do things are different.
Speaker B:And so when we're shooting in the Philippines and we're like, I want to shoot inside that house or like, I want to shoot street on that, like this convenience store.
Speaker B:A lot of the Filipino crew were like, what?
Speaker B:Why?
Speaker B:Like, that's.
Speaker B:That's like that really, that house.
Speaker B:And then I think it was that coming from Australia that I'm like, oh, you guys.
Speaker B:You guys don't realize how special and unique that is because we've grown so accustomed to here in the Philippines.
Speaker B:So I do think that was something that my Australian side was able to kind of like find and like see these different places in the Philippines that maybe become overlooked over time because you get used to them.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And then vice versa as well, I think then bringing a lot of the Filipino ways of filmmaking and introducing them to some of my Australian crew, introducing, like, the sounds and the nature to my sound team in Australia, for example, like, there's.
Speaker B:There was definitely like a cross cultural exchange.
Speaker B:Like, there was a lot that my Australian, I guess, gaze brought to shooting in the Philippines.
Speaker B:And there was a lot that working in the Philippines brought back to informing the way that we worked in Australia.
Speaker A:The film itself, first slide is.
Speaker A:Correct me if I'm wrong, but in.
Speaker B:Tagalog, yes, that's right.
Speaker A:Did you write the script in that language?
Speaker B:No, I didn't.
Speaker B:I wrote it in English and then we translated it.
Speaker B:My relationship with Tagalog is that my mother came to Australia when it was quite recently, after the white Australia policy had been taken out.
Speaker B:And white Australia policy in Australia was about 100 years.
Speaker B:No one could move and migrate to Australia unless you came from places within Europe and were essentially white.
Speaker B:So no one from Asia, no one from Africa could move to Australia.
Speaker B:And so by the time my mom moved, a lot of people hadn't really seen anyone from the Philippines before.
Speaker B:And so she was bullied when she spoke Tagalog.
Speaker B:So when she raised me and my sister, she deliberately didn't want to teach us the language because she was worried that we would get bullied for it.
Speaker B:And I did.
Speaker B:I remember being younger and not knowing what was English and what was Tagalog.
Speaker B:And in school, the teacher asking for a word of something, and then I would respond in Tagalog, not realizing that it's Tagalog, and being told off that that wasn't correct.
Speaker B:So from a young age, I cut myself off from that language, and this film became an excuse to reconnect myself with it.
Speaker B:And then over the process of filming, a lot of it came back to me.
Speaker B:Still can't speak it fluently, but there was something beautiful about reacquainting myself with the language and using the film as an excuse to do so.
Speaker A:Did it come back to a point within directing itself?
Speaker B:Yeah, a little bit, I think.
Speaker B:I think, yeah, it did.
Speaker B:Like, conversationally.
Speaker B:It's like a lot of everyone in the Philippines speaks, like, very great English.
Speaker B:It's in the curriculum, and it is, like, one of the national languages that everyone speaks.
Speaker B:But especially when shooting up in the country, it's not as English.
Speaker B:So people speak Taglish, they call it, where they'll kind of, like, switch between certain words that are English and Tagalog.
Speaker B:And sometimes when I was directing, I'm naturally just doing a bit of Taglish because it just became easier to communicate with some of my actors that way.
Speaker B:So, yeah, it definitely did come out in the directing.
Speaker B:And I don't know, I think there's also something to be said about that the language isn't as linear as English is.
Speaker B:Like, subject comes at different point, and verbs go at a different point in the sentence.
Speaker B:And then I think that also kind of makes me.
Speaker B:Then when characters are speaking and I'm thinking about the structure of the film, things are kind of, like, I think, subconsciously rearranging themselves.
Speaker B:And the way that I'd normally shoot a scene of, like, starting with a Y, then coming in, that kind of stuff, like, became kind of thrown off the more I reacquainted myself with the language, which is very interesting.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And if I'm not mistaken, this film is shot by Amy Deller, who also shot your thesis film.
Speaker B:Yes, that's right.
Speaker A:So I guess how did your partnership, collaboration and the time that passed translate from your earlier work together to this larger production with some hiatus in between.
Speaker B:Yeah, it was so, so great.
Speaker B:I mean, it's.
Speaker B:Amy worked with me when she's a little bit older than me, and she worked with me when I was a little baby in film school.
Speaker B:And I didn't really know what I was doing.
Speaker B:And she just had this energy which I'll never forget.
Speaker B:And it's something I look for in every collaborator on a film now, which is just that when we were shooting my thesis film in university, things obviously weren't perfectly organized because it was a university film.
Speaker B:And like when things were kind of crumbling and things weren't working, I'd always turn over to my camera department and Amy would just be there laughing and smiling and having a good time.
Speaker B:And she's very relaxed.
Speaker B:And I think I needed someone who was going to be relaxed because I knew things were inevitably going to come up in something as long as a feature film.
Speaker B:And she.
Speaker B:Yeah, she's seen me and like worked with me since.
Speaker B:Since then, since I was 20 and 21.
Speaker B:And so she's also seen my voice develop as an artist.
Speaker B:She kind of saw where it was at university.
Speaker B:She saw me all through my photography career living in America and how my vision started developing.
Speaker B:And we'd always be talking and I'd ask her for advice here and there on lighting and remember the things that she was doing on my thesis film.
Speaker B:And then yeah, it just got to the point where it's like by the time we're working together, I was 28 and we just had a very fluid understanding of each other's voice.
Speaker B:Like I knew how she worked as a cinematographer, she understood how I worked as a photographer in particular.
Speaker B:And so it just met so beautifully.
Speaker B:There was so much that didn't have to go communicated.
Speaker B:I would kind of just be like, oh, this is the scene and this is the feeling.
Speaker B:And she would understand it.
Speaker B:And we had the language of the film kind of understood between us.
Speaker B:And so yeah, it just married quite naturally.
Speaker B:We formed this telepathic way of communicating which was really beautiful.
Speaker A:Let's take a moment to talk about your lead.
Speaker A:The legend that Ruby Reese is as a first time feature director.
Speaker A:What were you looking for when casting someone to perform such an internalized, subtle character where so much of the performance happens beneath the surface?
Speaker B:Yeah, I really needed someone who I think had theater background because of our approach to filming in that a lot of our takes along one takes, we wanted someone who could hold those moments and could also, yeah, I suppose know how to like improvise or if things went wrong.
Speaker B:She understands her character so deeply and I guess just has that like understanding and love of acting.
Speaker B:And so Ruby, I found her from, from a video when she won an award, a best actor award in the Philippines.
Speaker B:And I Hadn't seen her work, but I saw her go on stage and accept this award.
Speaker B:There's something about her face that was so expressive that could tell so much.
Speaker B:There's also a cheekiness to her in that she, I don't know, she's very cheeky as a person and is always kind of pulling pranks and making jokes.
Speaker B:There's also a chain smoker and it's just, she's just so interesting as a human.
Speaker B:And I, yeah, was just like so drawn to her face and her ability to communicate so much was so little.
Speaker B:And in the Philippines, a lot of that acting in the local cinema, everything is a lot of soap operas where there's like overperforming, which is so beautiful.
Speaker B:And I love that kind of filmmaking.
Speaker B:But also I needed something that was going to be able to be stripped back.
Speaker B:And I think because Ruby had worked with some other directors that I know on international projects before, I knew that she'd be able to understand that the approach to filmmaking that I wanted to do was something that was very, very, very subtle.
Speaker B:And so it was a case of always just bringing things back to naturalism as much as possible.
Speaker B:And you know, we would understand between us two what's going on.
Speaker B:Yolanda is a character, but she would be able to find a way to express those just within small parts of body language and just like very, very, very small.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Ways of expressing her face.
Speaker B:And so yeah, she was really perfect and I'm so lucky to have her because yeah, she's an acting coach and she teaches a lot of young actors in the Philippines, especially ones going from like the influencer space into acting, which is happening a lot in the industry.
Speaker B:And she is just great at being able to, yeah.
Speaker B:Teach people about acting.
Speaker B:And I really needed that as a first time director.
Speaker B:It was great to be able to go to her and be like, you know, am I over directing?
Speaker B:Am I giving you enough notes?
Speaker B:Do you want more notes?
Speaker B:Like and just being curious as a director and wanting to learn as much from her as possible.
Speaker B:I think we had a really beautiful synergy together.
Speaker A:And as for her character's sister Yolanda's relationship to the story, the film raises this fascinating yet age old question and construct about how spiritual leaders are perceived and trusted.
Speaker A:But ultimately, as in pretty much all cases, money and power can corrupt even sacred institutions.
Speaker A:So how did you and Ruby explore that, once again, internal conflict of someone whose entire identity is built on faith suddenly confronting institutional betrayal?
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, I think it's so interesting because a lot of Our rehearsals, like, yes, we had gone through the script together, but a lot of our rehearsals were honestly just us talking and sharing our experiences.
Speaker B:And so I would explain to her, like, this is why I wrote the script, and this is where my thoughts kind of formulated from.
Speaker B:They formulated from this specific experience.
Speaker B:And then she would kind of bounce back and be like, I had a similar experience with this.
Speaker B:Or so I think we kind of shared and found a mutual place because Ruby is a lot more Catholic than I am, and she has a deeper relationship to God and Catholicism.
Speaker B:My relationship, I think, was from a young age, quite contentious.
Speaker B:Growing up gay in Australia and going to Catholic schools.
Speaker B:I think from a young age, I was kind of disillusioned quite early, whereas she.
Speaker B:From an older time, she became disillusioned at a deeper older age.
Speaker B:And so she has a relationship to the church, and she's very devout, a Christian, but she still.
Speaker B:She understood what I was trying to say because she.
Speaker B:She gets it.
Speaker B:She understands how the church can be manipulated.
Speaker B:And exactly as you were saying, it's like.
Speaker B:It's like spiritual leaders and that spirituality is beautiful, but at the end of the day, when they're human, inevitably it's going to intersect with, like, the more grounded and the human psyche.
Speaker B:We can't be spiritual people entirely.
Speaker B:And so she understood what I was trying to get at.
Speaker B:And so then we met, and I'd share my stories and she'd share her stories, and, yeah, we just find the point where our.
Speaker B:Our two versions of faith intersected and used that as our base for the rest of Yolanda's character.
Speaker B:And so, yeah, she's been.
Speaker B:It's been so wonderful working with her.
Speaker B:And also to have that difference and that different relationship to Catholicism really helped enhance my direction of the film and for her, really helped enhance her performance.
Speaker A:Last but not least, that shaken faith isn't at all limited to religion.
Speaker A:And now that we're here a couple days out from the world premiere of your first feature, once again, First Light at Melbourne International Film Festival, did you ever feel at any point when making this film that maybe it wouldn't work out after all?
Speaker A:And if.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:How do you overcome that?
Speaker B:Yeah, that is absolutely something I felt every step along the way.
Speaker B:Whether or not it was, you know, is the message gonna land?
Speaker B:Am I saying anything that's different or interesting?
Speaker B:Is it gonna land critically?
Speaker B:Is it gonna land in, like.
Speaker B:Is it even gonna, like, logistically come together?
Speaker B:How I have it in my head.
Speaker B:And, yeah, that.
Speaker B:That's kind of a constant thing that I was struggling with.
Speaker B:I think in the end, where I've landed is that it doesn't matter.
Speaker B:Like, you know, I'm.
Speaker B:I wrote this film, and it very much, like, helped me process a lot of my relationship to religion.
Speaker B:And it's been this reckoning with being like, if you're gonna create something that goes up for public criticism, not everyone's gonna like it, and that's okay.
Speaker B:And I think I would rather make something that feels authentic to my voice but doesn't land with everyone, than try and create something that everyone is going to love and enjoy and is going to be easy to make and easy to fund and.
Speaker B:And, you know, there was a world where, when I was first asking for funding with this film, a lot of, like, funding bodies were like, oh, you've got such a relationship with all these celebrities that you shoot in your photography world.
Speaker B:Like, can we, like, redo the script in a way that, you know, we can have a celebrity attached and we can make it like this?
Speaker B:And just.
Speaker B:That wasn't the approach for me.
Speaker B:And I'm really happy that I kind of stuck to my guns and, yeah, just tried to make something that feels as authentic to my voice as possible, and I'm still figuring out that voice.
Speaker B:And I think every artist is always constantly trying to figure out their voice.
Speaker B:I don't think it's a fixed thing.
Speaker B:I think it always changes.
Speaker B:But, yeah, for me, and right now, at this age and what I'm trying to say, I feel like the.
Speaker B:I've had no choice but to surrender.
Speaker B:If I kind of tried to control what people are going to think too much or worry too much about how people were going to receive it, then that was going to stagnate the filmmaking process.
Speaker B:And so there was no choice but to just be like, okay, cool.
Speaker B:This is how I want to tell the story.
Speaker B:This is what feels right to me.
Speaker B:These are the people who inspire me as filmmakers, and those are the people whose footsteps I'm going to follow.
Speaker B:And I just have to trust in that.
Speaker B:And so that's what I've done.
Speaker B:And you now, I kind of just let it go, and it's kind of just fun from here on out, which is really exciting.
Speaker B:I think the film has already served its purpose in that, you know, it brought together a crew of Filipino people, Australian people.
Speaker B:We got to explore some really deep and interesting questions together, and I got to reconnect with my home country and with indigenous customs that I may not have otherwise had the time or resources to be able to do.
Speaker B:And so for me, the film has served that purpose already.
Speaker B:And the rest of it now, the release and everything, it's all just, yeah, it's all just an added extra bit of fun.
Speaker B:And if the film raises some questions in an audience member, then my job is done.
Speaker B:And I'm happy with that.
Speaker B:I don't need people to, to love it in order to feel like it was a success.
Speaker B:Because to me already, there's no way from here, here on out that it couldn't feel that way, because it already has.
Speaker B:Just, yeah, it's, I think it served its purpose for me as an artist.
Speaker B:Already loved it.
Speaker A:And yeah, James, once again, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me for his gorgeous film.
Speaker A:And, yeah, have an awesome, lovely time at the fest.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker B:Thank you so much for chatting with me.
