i’m wanita
FEATURE DOCUMENTARY | 88 MINS | AUSTRALIA | DIRECTOR: MATTHEW WALKER | PRODUCER: CAROLINA SORENSEN + CLARE LEWIS + TAIT BRADY | BYRON PREMIERE
Six hours southwest of Byron in Tamworth, Australia’s ‘Country Music Capital’, lives the iconoclastic singer known as Wanita, the ‘Queen Of Honky Tonk’, a chaotic, flamboyant force of nature who has sacrificed everything for music.
This is the story of a renegade country music singer, hell-bent on realising her childhood dreams of stardom. Her quest – to record an album in the country music Mecca of Nashville – but her inability to toe the line threatens to derail her plans. Can Wanita keep her date with destiny?
Devoted to the sound & personalities of classic country and clearly "born in the wrong era", Wanita commits to walk in the footsteps of her honkytonk idols by recording in Nashville. In dim lit studios crowded with Nashville ghosts, we follow the unruly drama as Wanita and her entourage catch lightning in a bottle. I’m Wanita is the story of an untamable underdog, and the rewards and challenges of living your truth.
Using a combination of observational, on-the-run interviews & live performance, the film follows Wanita over a tumultuous five years as she tries to redirect her reckless life to fulfill her potential & have one last stab at her dream -- before it's too late.
Winner of Sydney Film Festivals Best Australian Documentary award
Reviews
“Walker’s film is stranger and more nuanced than its ‘late-life A Star Is Born’ set-up would suggest. What makes it stand out from a host of imitators is its shape-shifting moral and emotional arc: the story we get at the end is richer, messier and more interesting than a mere fairytale.”
“There’s a power to I’m Wanita that I didn’t realise I was craving. The musicality of Wanita’s life is intoxicating, joyfully so…. I sure do hope that like Searching for Sugarman did for Rodriguez, I’m Wanita ushers Wanita onto the mainstage in the prime spot, because she darn well deserves it.”
“If Loretta Lynn and Janis Joplin had a baby, it might just be the immensely talented and wildly complicated subject of I’m Wanita. Filled with wall-to-wall fabulous music, and blessed with an insanely watchable and engaging central figure, this Little Doc That Could is bound to win over audiences and spark a global wave of Wanita love.”
SESSION TIMES
SUNDAY DEC 19
6.30PM
Palace Byron Bay
