CAST:
Helen Lawson > Iva Rosebud
Neely O’Hara > Jens Radda
Partygoers > Nicholas Todarello > Eliza Janssen > Erin Christmas > Noah Janssen > Lachlan Bartlett > Allena Tran > Madeleine Todarello
CREW:
Producer > Erin Christmas
Production Design > Charlotte Wessel
Set Dresser > Indigo Lily
Director of Photography > Alessia Chapman > James Dryden
Best Person > Christos Katra
Gaffer > Hamish Rayner
Assistant Director > Erin Christmas > Alessio Mazza
Continuity > Natalie Cicciarelli > Alessio Mazza
Stills > Allena Tran
Sound Recordist > Nicholas Todarello
Editor > Noah Janssen
SPECS:
AWARDS > - Fundraising Goal Reached on Australian Cultural Fund!
SHOT IN > April 2025
CAMERA > ARRIFLEX Super 16SR3
NOTES:
I fell in love with Valley of the Dolls in an ugly Adelaide hotel room when I watched the 1967 movie for the first time, and I fell HARD. I started making my way through all the iconic camp classics, and spent the best day of the best summer of my life reading Jacqueline Susann’s original 1966 novel in Central Park of da Big Apple with the love of my life. At first I complained to her that any enjoyment of the book’s first section is smothered by the most grating, insufferable member of the story’s central trio of women, Anne Wells, and that the names of all the male characters were blending together. Then I had a gummy. I turned to my partner two hours later and said “this is the best book I’ve ever read in my entire life.” It is not a very good book. It’s also the ONLY good book. That afternoon, I connected the dots between my newfound obsession and the vague suggestion of a project back in Melbourne from months earlier. My dear friends and utterly singular artists Iva Rosebud and Jens Radda had asked me for suggestions for a showreel scene in which they could perform as their drag personas. At this apex of my Dolls fixation, I suggested something a bit more involved than a simple showreel, and here we are!
What hooked me in to camp cinema and this project was the delicate dichotomy at the centre of ‘camp’, and its similarities to that same tension at the core of horror. Yes, there’s something undeniably hilarious about Joan Crawford swinging an axe around, or Neely O’Hara violently and repeatedly screaming her own name while shit-faced in a dingy back alley, and no one should deny themselves such pleasures. But I also find it hard to avoid that a lot of camp artifacts involve mentally ill or vulnerable women navigating the minefield of gender politics they’re thrown into; largely, navigating age, fame and beauty. Sure, these camp classics are stories told in absurdly explosive ways that are fun to laugh at, but that impulse to laugh too often feels the same as a hall pass to dismiss and belittle.
I think horror operates in the same territory! The fine line between rooting for a character’s survival whilst also anticipating the next gory death, or the line between the genre’s fascination with terrorising women whilst also capturing them persevering through that violence, as well as the misogyny they struggle against. In my work I’m generally motivated by achieving an empathetic balance, by allowing two seemingly opposite things to compliment each other. With Valley of the Dolls - A Short Snippet, that was the experiment; can we make a piece of pop cinema indulgence, something that is visually delicious and has a ridiculous and heightened performance quality, but doesn’t make fun of its two leads or see them as a joke? As with a lot of arguments, Neely and Helen hate each other because they see themselves in each other, and see in each other what they have been or what they’re terrified of becoming. To see the scene as just a ‘catfight’ is to miss that it’s as a scene with really exceptional clarity of purpose for both of its characters. It’s my hope that our little film can walk that fine line between the kitsch and the sincerity.
From a personal standpoint, this project allowed me to focus on two things I was inexperienced with:
Whilst we’re still in the early stages of post production, I’m so happy that those ambitions have been achieved. We shot on 16mm, and it is gorgeous, enough so that it very, very slightly eases the pain of how expensive it was eeeek. Our entire crew lended their brilliance to this film, but I want to specifically point out the beautiful work of our Production Designer Charlotte Wessel, who pushed for our aesthetic vision for the film to not just rest on a pop contemporary take on 60s design, but to build a world that’s specific and refined as well as exciting. My smile kept growing wider and wider as I was watching the set get dressed, and if all else fails, I know our film is one that your eyes will wanna bathe in.
And finally, the exceptional Iva and Jens more than managed the delicate dance of camp that was the main thematic focus of the project; to indulge in excess, without shying away from sincerity. It’s a gift to look at the intensity of their eyes this closely, so you’re welcome.
I’m extremely excited to share this film with our supporters and donors, without whom none of our work would be possible. We’re seriously so grateful for you all, and I promise that we made this with a lot of love in return.
In the words of the utterly exhausting Anne Wells, “You’ve got to climb Mount Everest to reach the Valley of the Dolls”. I assure you dear reader that IVA ROSEBUD and JENS RADDA have sailed to that peak and kept on climbing to the stars!