Charli XCX was a lifeline for her LGBTQ fans during quarantine — and this new film documents it
Filmmakers Bradley & Pablo captured the extraordinary process behind the artist’s early pandemic album
Queeries is a weekly column by CBC Arts producer Peter Knegt that queries LGBTQ art, culture and/or identity through a personal lens.
On April 6, 2020, as we all were attempting to navigate the particularly arduous early days of the pandemic, British musician Charli XCX threw a little lifeline to those of us lucky enough to consider ourselves her fans. She announced on a public Zoom call that she would be working on a new album while in self-isolation and that she would be releasing it to the world … in just six weeks.
She also announced that she very much wanted her largely LGBTQ fan base (whom she calls "The Angels") to be part of the collaborative process, asking them to join Zoom calls so she could share demos and text conversations with them and ask for input on single releases, song ideas and artwork. And together, they would ultimately achieve one of the most impressive creative feats of the pandemic. Not only was the album — titled How I'm Feeling Now — released on schedule six weeks later, but it was also a truly masterful synth-pop exploration of how so many of us were feeling then.
Over a year later, the innovative — and for many Angels, life-altering — process that brought How I'm Feeling Now to fruition has been beautifully documented in Bradley Bell and Pablo Jones-Soler's film Alone Together. The doc, which is closing the virtual edition of the Inside Out film festival on June 5, cuts together footage from both Charli's isolation and that of so many of the fans she involved in making the album.
"I think, ultimately, the most inspiring part of the film, at least for us, was just how we were really touched that when we were all apart and alone and felt sad and anxious, this process brought people together," Bell said over Zoom last week. "It made you feel good again. And the film is really about the power of togetherness and what can be achieved in what felt like an impossible time — and what on the surface looks like an album, but I think what the film shows is that it was so, so much more."
Bell and Jones-Soler have been working together for a decade, making music videos for Lil Nas X, Harry Styles, Dua Lipa, Troye Sivan, Little Mix and Charli XCX herself, among many others. Alone Together is their first film and it was inadvertently inspired by Club Quarantine, the online queer party a group of Toronto artists created at the very beginning of the pandemic.
"Filming," of course, was a very complicated concept given the situation. "It was pretty overwhelming," said Jones-Soler. "Obviously, because of the quarantine restrictions, we weren't able to shoot anything ourselves, which was obviously giving up a lot of control in the process. With most documentaries, the story develops as you dig deeper into what's happening. I think we were even more removed from the process in that we were just, like, receiving footage, mainly from Charli. Once we had the idea for the documentary, we sent her three cameras to her house, where she lived with her boyfriend and her managers-slash-best friends. So we were just receiving folders of footage at the end of every day or every two days, kind of hoping there was some good story in there that we could weave together."
They also spent a considerable amount of time interacting with her fans, who also shot extraordinary amounts of footage for the film. Bell and Jones-Soler would spend eight hours on Zoom with them every day as the album was taking shape, ultimately making a few of them key subjects in the film. But that would become a new challenge in itself given they — like most of us — were in a fragile emotional state.
"Most of the kids that we have in the final film, at some point during the process, were like, 'OK, this is way too much. I don't feel comfortable doing this. I feel like I'm not interesting,'" said Jones-Soler. "And it's kind of interesting to see how that was sort of married to Charli's process of filming, itself, as well. When stuff got stressful and intense, she was like, 'Why am I even doing this?' Because we're not there to just keep rolling, people were just, like, turning off. A lot of times they just didn't feel confident. And that was kind of an interesting thing to work with and overcome."
Pretty much all of the Angels featured in Alone Together identify as LGBTQ, a group that has dominated Charli's fan base from the beginning.
"I think part of it is her position at the margins of pop culture," said Bell. "I don't think she's ever necessarily felt totally at home with some of her peers in that sort of mainstream space. I think she has always sort of felt like a bit of an outsider. And she's always been very open and transparent with that. I think a lot of fans relate to that feeling of being on the margins a bit."
Jones-Soler added that part of it is also just how much Charli recognizes LGBTQ folks as her core audience.
As Alone Together finds its way to audiences and we as a collective society find our way out of the pandemic, Bell and Jones-Soler hope the film reminds us of the importance of community.
"Before the pandemic, maybe you can forget that that's really what matters the most in life: human connection and being surrounded by people that you care about and being able to care about those people as well," Jones-Soler said. "I think the pandemic — and this project — really highlights that."
"The way [Charli's project] really touched these people around the world was a really beautiful thing," added Bell. "I hope it kind of inspires more projects like that and just reassures people that we're all together."
Alone Together will screen virtually on June 5th as the closing night film of Inside Out's 2021 edition. Anyone in Ontario can watch by buying tickets here.
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