Her Sound Her Story is one of the best Australian music documentaries of all time
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10.11.2019

Her Sound Her Story is one of the best Australian music documentaries of all time

Words by Tammy Walters

A must-watch.

Gather the girls, bring around the boys, fire up your friends and family. One important conversation is about to be ignited and it starts with a 70-minute documentary viewing on Vimeo.

From the captivating cinematography of AWMA 2018 Film Maker Award winner, Claudia Sangiorgi Dalimore, and the delightfully, daring direction from renowned music photographer, Michelle Grace Hunder, Her Sound Her Story delivers thought-provoking and down-right shocking insight into the female narrative of representation in the Australian Music industry.

“The whole documentary is the female experience. We gave a lot of celebration to the female narrative and that’s all it was and the focus was of their experience and their lives and creative life of songwriting and family life, their youth. I think a few men have asked ‘why are there no men in the film, why did you choose that?’ and we’re like, ‘that’s not what we’re doing’,” explains Claudia Sangiorgi Dalimore.

After nearly a nearly five years process, a three year ‘labour of love’, over 45 interviews with female musicians and music industry representatives across five generations including the all-star cast of Zan Rowe, Kate Ceberano, Ella Hooper, Ecca Vandal, Vera Blue, Alice Ivy, Deborah Conway and Mojo Juju to name a slither, an epic launch concert for Melbourne Music Week in 2016 featuring live performances from a handful of the interview participants, and a national roadshow screening under their belt, Hunder and Sangiorgi Dalimore are pumped to get their project out into the world.

“It’s been a labour of love and a real exploration of not only the industry and the female narrative, but an exploration into our own lives and careers,” she says.

What we hear in Her Sound Her Story is not necessarily new information to females or anyone keeping tabs on the industry or to equality in the world in general. In fact, in 1995 Lindy Morrison made a documentary and accompanying student workbook called Australian Women in Rock and Pop Music which chimed uncanny parallels to the messages within Her Sound Her Story. We hear women tell their stories of being a female in the industry, on the high-profile topic of female representation on festival slots, of the double standards of appearance, body image, ageism and wage gaps, confidence gaps, role model status and overall balanced representation.

No, this is not new information but it is important information that needs to be addressed, and Her Sound Her Story does it perfectly by showing that there are in fact a great number of passionate, hardworking and creativity females who have earned the right to be there, and be seen and be heard.

“As we put this together we also started to notice that all of these women are quite confident and really self-assured and quite fierce in their execution of their artistry and I think that’s how we also view how we approach our careers,” Sangiorgi Dalimore says. “That for us through the entire filmmaking and in the whole venture with Her Sound was the crux of it, just seeing the power of all of these women coming together and how good that feels and the community is kind of the only answer we could find – band together with community, find your peers and those like you. We’re more powerful in numbers.”

Her Sound Her Story is available now for download or rent via Vimeo. It’s a must-watch so check it out now at vimeo.com/hersoundherstory and also watch the Australian Women In Rock and Pop Music Documentary there too.