She is Australia’s ‘Queen of Honky Tonk,’ a country singer from Tamworth, New South Wales, with a voice as powerful as that of the great Loretta Lynn. And her private life is as turbulent as that of any country music star too.
There are family estrangements, money troubles and a side job as a sex worker. Whatever happens to her, her long suffering Turkish husband sticks by her. Now, Wanita Bahtiyar’s dream of making it in Nashville looks as if it may be fulfilled.
I’m Wanita, Matthew Walker’s film about the mercurial singer, has just premiered at Hot Docs in the Artscapes Strand. As the director tells Business Doc Europe, Wanita is just as much a phenomenon off the screen as she is on it.
This is actually Walker’s second film on Wanita. The first, Heart Of The Queen, was a 2014 short. “Somebody‘s got to make a docco. Crazy shit happens around her all the time,” a friend had mentioned about Wanita. That’s how Walker was first lured to the Tamworth Country Music Festival to film her in January 2014. He didn’t know much about her at the time. “We just started filming almost immediately. She was sussing us out as much as we were sussing her out.”
Wanita threatened to “sack” Walker within half an hour of first meeting him. “I was being too softcock which is what she called it.” However, he hardened up quickly enough as he realised there was “documentary gold” ready to be mined in her presence.
The short was well received at festivals all over Australia. Gradually, Walker began to think there might be a feature in Wanita’s story. “It was suggested to me that this documentary felt like the beginning of a bigger world.” With development money from Screen Australia, he plunged into I’m Wanita at the start of 2017.
Yes, the singer now considers the filmmaker part of the family. She acknowledged, though, it took a while for her to become certain she could trust him. “But I think there was a certain point when she understood what this process was,” the director remembers of how he grew into his role as the ‘queen’s documentarian’.
“She opened herself up completely and made the decision just to run with the process,” he underlines.
One mystery for viewers of the film is that Wanita isn’t better known. As the documentary underlines, she is prodigiously talented. “I think essentially she struggles with all the things around [the music business]. There is a lot more to it than just performing – [for example] the administration, relationships and all the rest of it. She struggles with all of that. She doesn’t play the game. She chose a long time ago not to play the game because she found the game too hard, or it just didn’t fit with her.”
Wanita can be abrasive. In the tight knit Australian country music industry, she was considered ‘difficult.’ However, thanks to Walker’s film, she is likely now to be treated with far more respect. “She has always known she is a star. She says that a lot,” Walker reflects.
The album that Wanita recorded in Nashville is now in the process of being launched. Music world insiders in Australia have been amazed by it. Some have belatedly realised that the singer is the real deal.
The director’s admiration for his subject is self-evident. She was as frank about her sex work as about any other part of her life. Walker has already shown the documentary to Scarlett Alliance, the sex workers advocacy group which gave the film its enthusiastic approval.
Wanita suffers from autism. “She is clearly a neuro-divergent person,” Walker says of her. She is open about her condition. “It takes a while to see how she does process the world but there is a very strong consistency there. It is clear and structured.”
One of the perks of making the documentary was the chance to accompany Wanita to Nashville. Not that the director was able to enjoy being there. “For me, it was fairly kind of…worrying!” He jokes of his time in the capital city of country, trying to make sure he captured the footage he needed. The upside was seeing Wanita “hold her own” with the ”cream of the cream” of country music. The Australian singer was treated with complete respect and seriousness by the Nashville musicians and producers who recognised her as one of their own.
Walker cut his teeth as an editor. He suggests his editing background has been invaluable to him as a filmmaker. “For me, it’s not about coverage. It’s not about scenes. I know from my editing background that what is important is to get is those magic moments. It’s making sure that magic gets in the camera,” he says. “I totally put my trust in haphazardness…that felt in line with Wanita’s personality as well.”
I’m Wanita was made through People Productions and produced by Carolina Sorensen, Clare Lewis and Tait Brady. It will be released in Australia through Brady’s company Label Distribution.
