Interview: The Golden Spurtle – Constantine Costi

The Golden Spurtle, a documentary on the World Porridge Making Championships, is coming to Sydney Film Festival. Addy Fong spoke to director Constantine Costi:

Let’s start with oats, what stirred you to make a documentary on porridge? It’s very niche.

A friend of mine, a mutual friend with Toby, the Australian competitor, told us about the competition. I did a little bit of research and it sounded really quirky, fun, eccentric, and compelling. I was in Germany working on another gig and I couldn’t stop thinking about this strange competition. I went to the town, to the village, basically unannounced and started knocking on doors and fell in love with all of the people I met. I found everyone really charming and funny, going through their trials and tribulations. So really, for me [the film] became very much less about oats and porridge and more about documenting this small town. Although I’ve now developed an obsession, a knowledge of porridge, no one should know as much about that food as I do.

I’m curious, is this your first documentary feature? 

This my first documentary in any form. The only film I’ve made was a opera film for Pinchgut Opera, which was sort of like, effectively, an hour long series of music videos set to music from the 1600s. I shot that with Dimitri, who shot the film, and Becca, who produced the film. So that’s like very, very far from the world of documentary. They’re both very experienced and we worked collaboratively together, but I was sort of flying blind half the time, and didn’t know any of the rules going in so it was kind of terrifying and liberating for me to work in a completely different medium, because I normally work in the opera and in live performance so this was a complete departure.

Being your first feature, something you’ll be known for, you’re now porridge man, is this going to now be your whole brand/persona?

[laughs] Yeah I need to move onto like congee next and just make my way…

I was going to ask your thoughts about congee! [laughs]

Look, I think [porridge] is a really fun hook to the whole film. It instantly captures the imagination. And yeah, I’m happy to be the porridge guy and to print merch, sure, I can rebrand. 

Happy to buy a $25 shirt.

What really surprised me is that we premiered in Copenhagen at CPH:DOX. It was kind of insane for a film that had no publicity going in, that we sold out so many of our screenings and had to add extra screenings. The feedback I was really happy with was that people went in expecting a documentary about a competition and they came out learning about a tiny little village and the curious and bittersweet world of some of its inhabitants. I’m really proud of them, particularly Charlie, the chief of the competition, I really bonded with him and was keen to tell his story through the Trojan horse of a porridge competition. 

It’s wild you just rocked up to the village. Lot of film productions, a lot of documentaries, require developing trust and rapport with their subjects. When you first visited did you go with Toby the Australian porridge competitor?

No, I didn’t go into this with any ambition that we were going to have a film at the end. I was like, at the very least, I get to go and hang out in the Scottish Highlands. So the first trip I just went entirely on my own, literally just knocking on doors and meeting people. The village, it’s a total of about 400 people, so it’s tiny, and I developed that rapport, and obviously told people I’d be interested in making a film about this competition, about the village. There was some initial suspicion because no one really wants the piss to be taken out of them and we didn’t want to do that either. I went back for a second trip with Dimitri, the cinematographer, and I recorded sound, just to shoot some test stuff.  We slowly developed a really genuine bond with all the villagers, particularly with Charlie. We wanted a spirit of authenticity and warmth to shine through. I wanted it to mirror the joy I felt when I visited the first time, for the audience watching to go on a similar journey that I experienced, which was really quirky and fun. 

When watching I felt this warmth and a sense of discovery that you get in really small, rural, country towns. One aspect I got, and maybe cause I go to church, was the church being a main character of the village, a place for them to bond, like a community hall. 

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like the whole film is a little testament to community and community values. I think part of the reason why I’m so touched with the overwhelmingly positive response we’ve had is that the world is so fucking chaotic at the moment and it’s nice to showcase a little pocket of the globe where people are slightly older, maybe slightly infirmed, band together to put on this event, a joyful absurdity being triumph. Things like church goers, community halls, or even the pubs, these tiny little hubs where people meet are so important and so vibrant and are getting more and more lost. Whilst I’m not really in the business of having a moral to a story, there is something in celebrating traditional modes of connection which I think is very subtly bubbling under the surface of the film. I’m really glad you picked up on that because that was a huge part of it. 

The cinematography and the music felt very Wes Anderson inspired? Is he an influence of yours?

Not particularly. It’s funny, a few people have mentioned Wes Anderson, I love his films, so to be compared to him is great and really flattering. In terms of influences on the film, I’m not a film expert by any stretch of the imagination. We looked at a lot of paintings, listened to a few old BBC Radio dramas to get a kind of a nostalgic, dream-like feeling going throughout the whole thing. With the music, the composer is a friend of mine Simon Bruckard, who’s quite a well acclaimed composer and conductor. He said to me, ‘I’ve never written anything for film before.’ And I was like, ‘that’s why I think you’re perfect for this because we can really build something fresh and exciting.’

We both come from opera and we were really keen on not having a digital soundtrack so we assembled a scratch orchestra and recorded at a studio in the ABC because that’s our bread and butter working with a sense of liveness. I think it would be wrong to the spirit of the village for it to be overly digitized or overly slick. There’s kind of a scrappiness throughout the whole thing and a painterliness that Dimitri brings to the whole thing that I feel helps you almost smell the village as you’re watching it.

Definitely. There were so many characters in the village, the film was a snapshot so many personalities like Barbara the dishwashing champion. I feel like music was a strong chararcter too

Totally. We teamed up with Hopscotch UK who co-produced it and that was great not only to have their expertise and support but also they’re based in Glasgow so we had a Scottish contingent guiding the film in terms of representing that community. With the soundtrack the first thing I said to Simon was, ‘I don’t want any bagpipes. Let’s find our own sound that speaks a little bit beyond the cliches of what you associate with the highlands’ but we do have a bagpiper featured at one point!

This is weird but in the film a guy says ‘Fiona’ in a scottish accent and I thought of Shrek for some reason  [Laughs]

[laughs] There is something sort of mythical about the place. In preproduction we listened to Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas, a Welsh radio play that sort of charts the dreams of all of these seaside villages. You hear the dreams of the milkmaid and the cobbler and that was a real guiding force in terms of, as you said, really championing these quirky fun characters and giving it a slightly heightened feeling as well in our compositions.

The film felt observational but obviously the characters acknowledge the camera. Audiences are invited into the village which was only  possible through your rapport with the villagers. They must of thought who’s this weird dude that’s rocked up from the other side of the world?

I think that was part of the fun, we rocked up in this small place, as you say, from the other side of the world. People opened their doors to us just out of hospitality for a visitor. I think if we were Scottish, I imagine it would have been a different story because there’s a big difference between 90 minutes on the train and 30 hours on a plane. I think that really played in our favour, people felt obligated to host us. Pretty much everyone we approached for an interview agreed to be on camera so it was kind of amazing like that. Word got out amongst the village, these are small villages where gossip is such a fluid currency, so it was very quickly known that there was a film crew running around. People were raising their hands, half of them raising their hands, half of them terrified that we’d knock on their door. 

I guess it’s bit of luck, a bit of good timing in that sense when things just happen for you.

Yeah, absolutely, it’s totally surreal. There’s a million things that could have gone wrong and we had very little money. Obviously we did our homework, but yeah, it’s surreal to think about how lucky we were in a lot of ways. Many of the competitors we did back stories on made it to the final of the competition. There’s 30 competitors, so we obviously couldn’t follow every competitor, but we had more than half appear in the final, which was amazing. So I think, yeah, the porridge gods were sort of smiling throughout the shoot. And the weather was great. Scotland is so famously rainy, but the vast majority of the shoot we had beautiful, sunny weather so, yeah, we were very lucky.

Personally, I felt educated. I didn’t know you can make porridge without milk. Also, I learnt what a spurtle is, it’s a fancy stick that looks like a table leg. 

Yeah, it does. [laughs] All that stuff is funny when you discover these purists and how they just use water and salt and how many different variations [of porridge] there are. It’s one of those things, it’s simple on the outside but as you dig deeper and deeper, it becomes more complex, more complicated and interesting, the alchemy of it. Even in the film, as they say, you don’t stir anti-clockwise otherwise you let the devil into your bowl. All of these funny nuances does speak to Scottish history as well, porridge was a workman’s food, something hearty and sustainable that oversees the building of a country.

So… How do you make your porridge?

Toby Wilson, the Australian competitor, he’s posting recipes at the moment, he posted great one the other day, which is basically your usual steel cut oats, water, salt, but then an egg yolk and brown sugar to give it a custardy, creamy flavor. As it’s getting cold, I’m getting more and more into that but the problem is that I’ve had the best porridge in the world now so every bowl I make just taste terrible by comparison so I’ve been spoiled. I’m sort of slumming it when I pop the saucepan on. 

Roger Reed, founder of The Golden Spurtle, spoke about competition being created as a way to promote the village of Carrbridge . In relation to country towns within Australia and all of the big things like the big banana which is used to promote tourism, was this novety a reason for making the film?

Yeah, definitely, I think a lot of rural communities in the UK and Australia do face these issues of people leaving and these villages do face existential crisises and a big part of it is tourism. Carrbridge though, is like the ultimate success story. It’s a village that’s really punching above its weight and it’s sort of the gold standard of a thriving village, people come and visit there, lots of tour busses go through, and things like that. It was funny meeting Roger, I actually found it quite hilarious, you think there’s going to be this deep and meaningful reason as to why they chose porridge but in typical stoic Scottish fashion, he’s like, yeah, we’re just promoting the village and it seemed like a good idea and away we went! And that’s sort of the fun of it, that they built their own mythology and it’s been going for 30 years. I love that aspect of it, actually. 

That’s funny because 30 years mythology wise, isn’t that long but yet the village, the people are like, pretty old. I was wondering in the village, are there young people, or were you guys a novelty, the young, eager filmmakers coming to visit their little town?

I think we were mainly a novelty just being Australian, to be honest. They were a bit chuffed to be in front of the camera. Most of the people on the porridge committee and the community council are older. There are young people living there but it’s definitely an older demographic for sure, and that was part of the appeal I think. A bunch of older people making it work and banding together to keep it up and running. I think it’s kind of inspiring, they just have so much integrity, and the competition itself was quite successful, there’s been pressure and discussion of, should we take it out of the village hall and they’ve really just stuck to their guns and said no this whole thing is really about showcasing the village, and the identity of the hall is a really important part of it. As you’ve seen, it’s such a beautiful little setting. Under Charlie’s guidance they have had a lot of authenticity to what they do. 

Yeah, definitely, it’s very cute.  Watching I just felt this warmth, the warmth of porridge, warmth of congee, the comfort of film. It was an enjoyable movie.

Yeah, we were keen on it having a soft and inviting touch. For you to leave with a sense of optimism and warmth, whilst the world is again, in such a horrific and worrying global climate at the moment, is great. It is important to remember that there are pockets of hope, and the power of community to bring a bit of joy into the world. I’m really proud to be a part of that. For me as well, it was refreshing coming from the opera world where it can often be very serious, and there’s potential for elitism there, and to make something that I think, it’s a cliche, but there’s sort of something for everyone in the film, it’s comedic and entertaining and kind of bittersweet at the same time. 

Elitism is interesting because you say you come from the Opera world, recently I went to a Theremin concert at the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and I don’t often go to these kind of events. There’s this elitism to music, classical music I mean, but there are moments of warmth in music that undercuts the idea of elitism within arts and how it’s presented, that invites new audiences in. What do you do in Opera? Do you play a particular instrument or are you involved more in the technical aspsects of sound?

So I direct opera, I stage it but my entry into it was music. I played music throughout high school and wanted to be a musician and accidentally fell into directing and then fell into opera. I really like talking about this idea of the hurdles of elitism in the form because I came from it as an outsider too. I was intimidated by it as well when I started listening to it and working in the field. I don’t know if this is relevant, but there is an important distinction to be made between something that’s elite and something that is elitist. I think the thing about the opera in the classical world is that you want to see elite people who are the best violinists, the best singers, the best piano players, and they’re elite and that’s something that you want to celebrate. It’s like the Olympics. I don’t want to see someone like me doing the diving. You know what I mean? I want to see a professional who’s the best in the world. The thing that the classical world can sometimes suffer from is that it’s intimidating when it shouldn’t be, it should be sharing and celebrating people with extraordinary dedication and gifts and there’s nothing more democratic and approachable than music. It’s universal feeling and I feel like a big part of it is sort of guiding audiences and attempting to shift the culture by being like, you don’t need to have a PhD and to wear a tuxedo to enjoy this. A lot of that comes down to price point, a lot of it comes down to just down to marketing and making people feel comfortable and included because there’s nothing more joyful than the world of classical music, it’s been going for long enough to have a lot of value. It all started as popular entertainment, it was always made to be enjoyed, so I think I’m kind of secretly on a mission to make these things approachable and joyous and to share the love that I have for them with an audience. I feel like you never really want to feel like you are insider. Again, making The Golden Spurtle, a big part of me was like, ‘what the fuck, I have no idea what I’m doing. It’s the first time I’m doing this.’ But just sort of being guided by those principles of okay well, I shouldn’t worry about, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing’ and think more about, ‘okay, well, what do I want to do?’ and using that to get over the fear factor, I suppose.

I saw at the start that this film is supported by Screen Australia? What was their involvement? I’m thinking about how documentaries apply for funding with pitches, etc.

We were really generously supported by a few [funding] bodies and early on, I approached a few arts donors who really got the film up and running. We were able to cover our initial costs so I was really lucky to be connected through a few super generous and passionate individuals, which was great. I think this has really struck a nerve with people. It’s amazing to see funding bodies, distributors, and companies get on board and see value in it so I feel very humbled and excited by it. But again, we just got super lucky, we just found a really great story, really great people. Dimitri and Simon and Rebecca and all the other collaborators are just extraordinary so it was like the definition of a team effort, for sure.

Rebecca Lamond, the film’s producer adds: Documentaries can be a little tricky in the pitch stages. The one question I would get asked was “how does it end?” Which I think is a flawed question when the truth is that you don’t know. It involved us backing the idea and seeking out donations to get the ball rolling as well as being really clear about the film we were making. Constantine was really great at getting our donors as excited as we were about the vision for the film.

Screen Australia and Screen NSW both came in development funding after we had raised some money through our very generous arts donors. We used ACF and Documentary Australia platforms to help us fund raise. This helped us cover our initial trips. Then once we had Umbrella on board as a distributor, Screen Australia came in with principal production funding and then Dogwoof came on board as our international sales partner. It’s actually my first time working with them on a film, and Screen Australia (and Screen NSW) has been extremely supportive of the film from development through to festivals and helping us find partners. They have helped us strategise while really letting the film be its own thing.

I think it would be remiss to say that we wouldn’t have gotten far at all without Hopscotch, and John Archer, our co-producer in Scotland. John’s knowledge of the documentary world is immense. He has been a champion at helping us navigate the world of documentaries.

Are you going to be introducing the film at the festival?  

Yeah, every film screening, I’ll be at doing a Q&A, and I think Toby’s going to be doing Q&A’s as well with me which is fun. The State Library screening is sold out and the State Theatre I think we’ll definitely end up packing the house, which is wild. We’re about to sell out the State Theatre, there’s less than 40 tickets left. You see, here’s the thing, CPH:DOX in Copenhagen was the first festival I’ve attended so I have no idea what the protocol is. I’m just a dude talking about porridge, it’s quite funny. 

Porridge man!
[laughs] yeah I’ll get a T-shirt. Porridge man, exactly.

Find out more about tickets and showtimes for The Golden Spurtle at Sydney Film Festival.

Interview by Addy Fong.