Screenings
2009 Sydney Underground Film Festival
2009 New Filmmakers Festival Anthology Film Archives (NY)

User follows a homeless prostitute as she walks the streets of Sydney’s red light district and the parallel story of a Health Educator who works with her.
User is a hybrid of documentary and experimental film, using sophisticated
re-enactments and filtered, re-framed visuals. Through a constantly shifting perspective User examines the differences between the two women, revealing surprising moments of divergence and intersection.

Director's Statement
User is based on stories of people I met during my time working as a health educator with injecting drug users and prostitutes. My job - and some of the clients were at times difficult, but the majority of people I encountered were interesting and good hearted albeit desperate. I felt proud of my work. I was taken aback when friends, acquaintances and family would greet me with shock and disgust when I told them what I was doing for a living. I became pre-occupied with what separated the workers from the clients. What made the woman that I could joke with at 5 in the afternoon, have to ignore me as she stood on the street working as a prostitute 6 hours later? At this time I was living in the suburbs and it became clear to me that both the superficial contrasts of a seamy, red-light district and a clean, controlled suburban landscape are misleading. Though the socially accepted standard I found the middle class world could be destructive. While the inner city drug milieu - a difficult world to inhabit can be a place of loyalty and surprising warmth.

Style
User is a reconstructed documentary. To maintain a sense of raw, immediacy I shot the majority of the film on an old fashioned hi-8 camera, using only available light. I then reshot scenes from a TV monitor manipulating the framing, speed, and focus and using filters. The result is a grainy, dirty shot. The grains and pixels are large giving the impression that you are looking at something more than video. Just like our protagonist the image is sullied and distorted yet simultaneously engaging. The voice over of Rachel is drawn from conversations I'd had with clients, things I'd read in their files as well as articles written by the clients in various peer-produced journals such as User's News