Moon sheds light on Australian music and feminist icon Helen
Director Unjoo Moon tells Georgia Humphreys the story of singer Helen Reddy
In 1966, Australian singer Helen Reddy arrived in New York with her young daughter, after being told she had won a record contract.
The record company then informed her that, actually, they had enough female stars already.
But she decided to stay in America to pursue a career in music anyway – and ended up writing and singing I Am Woman, which became the anthem for the women’s movement in the 1970s.
It makes for an inspiring biopic, titled the same as her most famous track.
“I met Helen seven years ago and it has been the most blessed, powerful and also challenging experience as well,” says Australian director Unjoo Moo.
“I always knew that this story would be something that we should really put on screen; it’s a story I hadn’t seen before, and it’s a movie I wanted to watch.”
Reddy, who had Addison’s disease and was diagnosed with dementia in 2015, sadly died in September this year, aged 78.
Moon, 56, says she is “so glad that Helen not only got to see the film but to hear about how much the audiences loved it”.
There were also lots of discussions between the filmmakers and Helen about how the feature – which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September last year – would depict her marriage to Jeff Wald, who was also her agent.
Although Jeff helped her get to the top, and they had a son together, he also suffered from drug addiction, and it was a toxic relationship.
In 1983, they divorced. And the film doesn’t shy away from showing both the good and the bad bits of their time together.
“The more I got to know Helen, and as we tweaked on the film over the years, I think the nature of the relationship that we ended up showing in the film tweaked along the way as well.
“I remember when we first started working on the script, Jeff was a very different character. I’d not met him at that point; he was really the villain of the movie. When I first met Helen she wasn’t even speaking with Jeff, she was still calling him ‘husband no 2’.
“Their relationship changed over the years that we worked on this film, and I would hope that this movie actually helped to contribute to that because they had to be more in touch as well.”
The film is largely about a woman fighting to have a voice, which Moon agrees feels particularly relevant with the Me Too movement gaining momentum. She attending the Washington women’s march in January 2017. “I went there to support the cause, but I also because I wanted to stand in that exact same spot that Helen stands in.
“Helen, in 1989, mobilised the women’s march; she stands and looks out at that sea of people around the Lincoln memorial, and I did the same thing.
“There was a sea of pink hats and there was actually a sign, which I took a photo of, saying ‘Hear me roar’ – that actually appears right at the end of the movie.”
● I Am Woman is available to watch in select cinemas and on digital platforms now