Wayne is a fixture on the banger circuit – a rough style of racing in self-built cars. Now that his son Jai-Dee is nearly 13, his debut “full contact” race is finally in view.
Jess Kohl’s new short film immerses us into the boisterous world at the same time as revealing a tender relationship between a father and a son. This cinematic coming-of-age story poignantly reframes expectations of masculinity in a tough sport.
I spoke with Kohl about making the film, how she gained the trust of this family in order to authentically express their story and when she found out the film had won a prestigious award.
What was the genesis of the project?
I went to my inaugural race with my brothers and father. I wasn’t going with the intention of making a film, but I was instantly captivated by the environment – it felt like a viscerally stark contrast from everyday rule-abiding life in the UK. It was an assault on the senses, the strong smell of petrol (and chips frying), the biting cold (it was December), the roaring of engines.
There was also a palpable sense of community, with multiple generations of families involved in the process of building and rebuilding cars, just to see all their efforts smashed up and destroyed. Something about the momentary pleasure of it all struck me and made me want to learn more.
How did you meet Wayne and Jai-Dee and gain their trust?
I met Wayne at that first race. He stood out from the crowd with his radiant charisma – he’s a natural leader. He was standing in the pits with Jai-Dee after racing, and we got chatting. We swapped details and kept in touch, and I went back to watch him race a couple of months later. Our friendship evolved from there – I didn’t just rush straight in with a camera, as much for myself as for my contributors. It’s important to develop a foundation and mutual trust before embarking on a film together, which takes so much energetically from everyone involved.
I’m interested in collaborating in a meaningful way with my contributors. Involving them in the process, crafting scenes and story beats together can lead to a deeper level of truth than purely observing. Wayne and I would discuss ideas for scenes that would work on a narrative and cinematic level, but also felt honest to him and his community. We made the film over a period of 6 months – working closely over a longer period was important to creating a feeling of trust and intimacy on screen.
This was an exciting introduction to the world of banger racing. How did you film the fast-paced races?
The races are obviously a visual spectacle, and we wanted to shoot these in a way that felt elegant yet immersive and reflected the almost poetic way that the devotees view it. We gained permission from the race track to shoot from the centre of the track (where spectators aren’t usually allowed), and used a long zoom lens which meant we could get close to the action. For the footage inside the car, Adric Watson, our brave director of photography, was driven around the track by Wayne and Jai-Dee. I hope our insurance company isn’t reading this!
The film explores ideas around masculinity in this particular community, was that always your intention or did that underlying theme emerge over time?
I’m interested in subverting expectations of gender and masculinity. Racing is a macho world, so it felt like an interesting space to explore this. Performances of masculinity here can sometimes feel othering or intimidating – but my experience of Wayne and Jai-Dee counteracted this. Wayne’s parenting approach is disciplined, yet gentle. He is not afraid to talk about feelings, and family is of utmost importance to both of them.
As a queer, gender nonconforming director, I feel I have an ability to bring a nuanced and sensitive gaze to a subject that in someone else’s hands could have been approached very differently. Racing was what drew me in on a surface level, but my true interest lies in human stories, coming of age and the quest for identity, which felt very present in Jai-Dee and Wayne’s lives.
The film has a compelling original score, how did you create it?
For me, the score is a potent layer in a film and I was excited to push that as far as we could. Rather than create one that sounded like something the characters might listen to, I wanted to build a score that felt reflective of the crashing cars, that felt nostalgic, noisy, lo-fi, organic and analogue. At the same time, I wanted to create a feeling of beauty, too – because for the racers, this is a place of respite from the other parts of their lives, it is pure escapism. This is where the more delicate instrumentation emerges.
I worked with musician James Kelly, who took my references and ideas and created a score that was everything I’d hoped for and more. One of our references was Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995), which Neil Young composed by watching the film and improvising on his guitar.
This film has screened at festivals around the world, how has it felt connecting with audiences in that way?
Screening the film at festivals around the world has been amazing. We recently had our London premiere at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, with Wayne, Jai-Dee and 15 others from the racing community in attendance. It created a unique atmosphere in the cinema, a combination of awkward yet intimate self reflection that everyone in the audience felt. It made me think about how important it is to make work that you are comfortable screening with the people it’s about, rather than excluding them from that part of the process, which I notice can happen.
Winning the Golden Frog for best short documentary at Camerimage was unexpected and exciting. Adric, who won the award for cinematography on the film, was there and sent me a video of him up on stage at this incredibly grand awards ceremony telling me we’d won. This qualified the film for the Academy Awards, so we are very grateful to Camerimage and the jury who chose our film.
• Watch A Mouthful of Petrol for free on theguardian.com/documentaries
