A big thank you to Al Bailey for taking the time to answer these questions via email. Al’s documentary DTF is currently being screened as part of the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival.
Where might have people seen your work before?
DTF is my first project as a director.
Is DTF the first film that you have had at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival?
This is my first film to feature at MDFF.
For those people who don’t get a chance to see DTF at the MDFF where else can they watch it?
DTF is widely available in the US and the UK via Gravitas and Lionsgate respectively on platforms including Sky, Virgin TiVo, Amazon Prime. We have yet to secure a sales deal for other territories around the world including Australia, but hope to do so by the end of the year.
Considering DTF challenged my notions of what a documentary is. Is DTF a genuine documentary?
I can fully understand the notion of questioning DTF’s credentials as a real documentary given the content of proceedings and the nature in which it is delivered, however what I think is the main ignition for these thoughts for the viewer is the oversight of not being able to appreciate that in real time the documentary was shot over 18 months and the final piece is jigsawed together in an 80-minute runtime. The legal obligations we were then faced with on the final cut added even more to the somewhat depraved craziness with which the final story was delivered. There was so much we weren’t allowed to show and in turn I think this ironically added to the depravity and eventual believe ability of the final piece, which I think in some way heightens the appeal and intrigue of the entire documentary and the subject matters observed.
What inspired DTF? Given “Christian’s” behaviour why did you complete DTF?
What started off as a genuine quest for love and an intrigue into a world I wasn’t familiar with was what initially inspired me to make DTF. It felt personal and at the same time remote and that fascinated me. What transpired was something I personally wasn’t prepared for and as a result a very raw and in some respects haphazard piece materialised organically. That being said there was the consideration in edit to gloss the subject with more of a concise analysis of addiction and travelling the route of it being a more thought provoking and standardised documentary, but I felt from a personal point of view that a world I had been completely privy too needed to be exposed in its rawest form as a cautionary tale to the viewer and experience the journey firsthand. Rightly or wrongly I think what was delivered was something that will affect an audience rather than educate them and I suppose in that sense that is why DTF is a very different form of documentary story telling.
Did you ever get the feeling that “Christian” did not want to be in DTF?
Knowing “Christian” over a number of years I was never naive enough to think that it was going to be plain sailing and knowing, what turned out to be only a sliver of “Christians” personality, I knew what avenues he would want to steer our narrative because of his resulting ego. I was more aware as time went on, that while he didn’t want to document himself finding love, it was also apparent he loved the attention of showing his somewhat ugly and misogynist world that he inhabited. His blurred out appearance and those of others were purely legal obligations to airlines etc rather than personal choice and even more shockingly “Christian” would have been more than happy to grace us with his appearance if it not for professional obligation. This was something that shocked me more than anything else and the realisation of thinking you knew someone in one world and finding them to be an insanely heightened version of what you knew in another… this was mind blowing in hindsight. This observation is actually easier now to comprehend than within the 18 months it was unravelling, as being caught up in the behaviour in real life is something very different and strangely more diluted than watching it back on screen. The best way I can describe it is to listen to a real-life conversation and then to see and hear it on screen is a very sobering and enlightening process and in this case because of the material quite disgusting.
Has anybody who works for Tinder reached out to you about DTF?
Aside from the initial contact reach out within the doc and on final edit, Tinder have chosen not to respond to us in any way. This is something I fully understand from their perspective, and I have no desire to approach them any further and let the documentary be an example of what negative behaviour exists out there that is associated with international travel and online dating. For me if nothing else DTF can be seen as a caution to be careful on what behaviour you maybe exposing yourself to, via such lifestyle choices around the subject matters documented.