Rae Choi is a writer, director and producer whose creative work explores themes of self-reflection, loss, culture and identity. Her lived experiences and career accomplishments highlight her versatility as a filmmaker with a strong commitment to storytelling.
Choi’s impressive portfolio includes the production of the short film My Home Is a Dog That Lives Inside Me (2017) and a collaboration with the same team on their first feature film Paris Funeral, 1972 (2021), which followed a similar process of being unscripted, shot on 16mm with non-actors, and filmed on location in Australia, France, and Italy. She co-wrote and produced Viv’s Silly Mango, a vibrant coming-of-age short as part of ABC ME and Screen Australia’s joint initiative, The Kaleidoscope Project.
In this Colour Box Studio interview, Choi generously shares about her journey as a lawyer and film producer moving into writing and directing. She discusses how experiences growing up in an Asian Australian family influenced the prevalent themes of otherness and longing for understanding in her work; and she explains how her upcoming short film, Waves, is inspired by an exploration of the complexities of personal loss.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.
My name is Rae Choi and I am a writer, director and producer based in Meanjin. Describing what I do feels difficult as I wrestle with definitive language and I’m in a constant muddy state of figuring. My avoidance in answering this in a straightforward way, right at this moment, is also largely shaped by the fact that I’m currently wading through a personal identity crisis. It sounds dramatic and it is.
How did you start your creative practice and why?
I started filmmaking as a producer, alongside my studies and eventual career as a lawyer. Following a decade of straddling both worlds and after a profoundly affecting encounter with Mary Oliver’s essay ‘Of Power and Time’, I left the law firm in 2019 with the intention of moving overseas. As a global pandemic would have it, that didn’t happen and in the wake of disappointment, listlessness and resting in the confines of my childhood bedroom, I found myself returning to writing, something that I’d discovered at an early age I love and need for personal reckoning, but had abandoned somewhere along the way. From there, I wrote my first short film, When The Sky Was Blue, which I ended up directing as well.
Photography has also been a recurring and now significant part of my process. Images, fragmented as they may be, tend to form the beginnings of a film for me, long before the words arrive.
Where did you grow up and how has it influenced your practice?
I lived in the outer suburbs of Meanjin until I was nine, then moved to the bayside when my dad was elected into the Queensland Parliament. He was the first Asian Australian to do so but I was too young then to appreciate the significance of this. Instead, I remember the awe and excitement driving home one sunny day after years of living in the area, when we saw another Asian family walking down the street. My sisters and I all exclaimed at once, as if we were on a safari, having spotted a rare animal in the wild. I’ve since learned that we grew up in the least culturally diverse metropolitan region in the entire nation. I wasn’t aware of this at the time but I know I felt it. That sting of otherness and ache for understanding (of others and myself) is woven into the fabric of my being and in turn, influences my work.
Tell us about your past creative projects. What has been a highlight so far?
As a producer, I am compelled by the immense challenge of facilitating someone else’s vision and as a person, I gravitate to that which I do not understand. Throw in ambition emboldened by naivety and you have the short film My Home Is A Dog That Lives Inside Me (2017) I made with Adam Briggs, Joshua Wilkinson and Adric Watson, and our feature film, Paris Funeral, 1972 (2021). Both projects were unscripted, shot on 16mm with non-actors and on location overseas, in countries where we don’t speak the language.
These projects broke me and made me. They taught me so much about the kind of films I want to make, and the kind of filmmaker I want to be. In carrying these affirmations and learnings and wanting to put them to practise, I felt motivated to dive into writing and directing. So for all that it represents and means to me, When The Sky Was Blue is my highlight.
Based on a series of reimagined memories, the film follows ten-year-old Leah as she experiences small but striking moments of longing and loss over the course of one Sunday. It’s about generational differences and the intersection of love languages, and looking back on your younger self and those around you with kindness and compassion. I made it with many close and dear friends with whom I felt safe to enter this space and create with – Sheree Ramage, Bonita Carzino, Brodie McAllister, Kate Dillon, George Levi, and so many more.
Tell us about your current project?
I’m currently working on my next short, Waves. Set by the beach, the film follows Indiana, a musician who discovers she has hearing loss while navigating the grief of losing her mother.
Inspired by my own discovery that I’m hard-of-hearing and the way it unearthed grief around the death of my Po Po (grandma), I’m looking to explore the shared qualities of losing a loved one and hearing loss. The isolating, disorienting and haunting nature of these experiences that force questions of imagination and reality.
We’re planning to shoot at the end of the year and are currently fundraising via The Australian Cultural Fund. You can learn more about the project here and we’d love any support (donations are tax-deductible).
Who or what inspires your practice?
Poetry. Memories. Morning pages. Nature. Dreams. Intergenerational trauma. Relationships. Philosophy. Cinema (mostly Asian). Spending time with someone through food or art or both. That tradie sitting alone in the gelato shop. Carving spoons. Swimming. Walking in unfamiliar places. Surrendering to hard truths.
Where do you feel most creative and why?
In those mundane, in between moments like driving or showering. Travelling, especially solo, is very nourishing for my soul and sense of aliveness. In the process of making, I love being on set for a similar reason, where it calls for a presence of mind, body, spirit.
Whose work are you digging at the moment?
I am blessed to be surrounded by kind, thoughtful artists, and many of whom I have or used to live with in this huge house in the suburbs of Meanjin. I’m constantly inspired by them, so much so I’m working on an experimental film about what some of them do and make with their hands. It’s a work in progress but collaborators so far include:
Miri Badger – painter & ceramicist: @miri.badger
Marilena Hewitt – publisher, writer & pici pasta maker: @hewittmarilena
Tiana Jefferies – sculpture & bird enthusiast: @tianajefferies
Lisa Tran Kelly – harpist & painter: @lake__kelly
Emily Reid – cinematographer & colourist: @emreid_
Joshua Tate – filmmaker & photographer: @joshtate_
Kathryn Walsh – fashion designer & alterations: @practice.studio
Oska Zervoudakis – sound designer & composer: @oz.ska
Where can we find and follow you online?
Website: www.raechoi.com
Instagram: @raechoi_
