#MeToo during lockdown

Firebrand Australian filmmaker Kitty Green isn’t about to let a pesky global pandemic stop her telling an important story.

Writer/director Kitty Green. Picture: Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP

What happens to a global movement like #MeToo during lockdown? Does it just go away? Are women in the workforce safer due to social distancing? And what will the professional landscape look like when this is all over? Last year, and even in February this year when disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison for sexual assault, #MeToo was on everyone’s lips. The film and music industries — and Australia’s stage sector — had been shaken to their cores with revelations and allegations of sexual impropriety. A spotlight had been shone on the dirty little secrets many had suspected but of which no one spoke. Women stood up. Cultural change, on a global scale, was afoot. Then struck the coronavirus. Well, firebrand Australian filmmaker Kitty Green isn’t about to let a pesky global pandemic stop her telling an important story. The established documentary maker, a Victorian College of Arts graduate, set tongues wagging earlier this year with her debut film feature at the prestigious Sundance Film festival. Her offering, The Assistant, charts the journey of an intern preyed upon by a domineering boss. (Sound familiar?) It will, like all films being released in the near future, roll out on streaming platforms and video-on-demand services. The Assistant is an important work, and Green is a filmmaker of real substance. She is one to watch.

I’m not one for inspirational quotes (in this era of Zoom meetings, though, I’ve drawn wisdom from that maxim attributed to Mark Twain: “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence over society”) but in catching up with Haruki Murakami’s 2002 novel Kafka on the Shore last week, I was struck by this germane gem: “And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm is all about.”

Stay strong in the storm.

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