What was the starting point for this film, and what made you want to tell this particular story?
The starting point is complex. My first visit to South Africa was in March 2020. I arrived three days before Level 5 lockdown and didn’t know a single person in the country. Patty Monroe was the first person who spoke to me while I was walking down Long Street, and we quickly connected through music and the arts. Over the next two years, we shot videos, wrote and recorded music, and even made a TV show together. I watched her grow into something bigger than a recording artist. After I left South Africa, we stayed in touch until one day she stopped posting, responding and communicating. When we eventually spoke again, she told me about the devastating losses she had experienced — her mother, sister and grandmother. She had lost the will to create. I told Patty, “I think it’s time to let all of that go. You can’t heal if you don’t talk about it.” Don’t Pity the Girl became, in many ways, a recorded therapy session and a way of releasing the person she once was. It was necessary, honest and healing for me to make.

What did the short-film format allow you to do creatively that a longer format might not have?
This story needed to capture the highlights, the lowlights and a path of hope towards what comes next. A longer format could have explored more details and personal moments, but the story was already incredibly vulnerable and raw. Going deeper for the public eye risked becoming invasive and leaving Patty in a space that wasn’t good for her healing.

Is there a particular moment, character or idea in the film that holds special significance for you as the director?
Yes. My mother passed away just a few months before we made this film, so the emotions Patty was processing during the interview were emotions I was also experiencing. There is a moment where Patty is laughing and joking, followed by a hard cut to the title screen revealing her mother’s passing. I wanted that transition to feel abrupt, random and hard because that mirrored my own experience of losing my mother to aggressive cancer.

What conversation do you hope the film creates with audiences after they leave the cinema?
I hope it encourages vulnerability — being able to say, “I was down. Life got to me, and I couldn’t perform the way people expected me to.” There is strength in being able to say that out loud, move forward and reinvent yourself. I also hope the film encourages people to show grace and love to those around them while they are still here.

Where does this film sit within your wider creative journey, and what are you interested in exploring next as a filmmaker?
This film sits within my deeper exploration of human nature and emotion. I strive to make the people in my documentaries feel real, and this was an exercise in ethical exposé. Next, I’m interested in moving from standalone projects into serialised documentary formats. I have several unscripted series concepts written and am looking for the right partners to bring them to life.