Abstract:
About Vivien is a fourteen-minute documentary film, which explores the experiences of
Walter Lee also known as Vivien, who lived his/her life in Sydney in the 1940s, crossing
the boundary of sexuality by dressing as a woman. In writing about the making of the
film from the point of view of the filmmaker, I first examine the problem of the absence
of documentary evidence of queer history and how stories are constructed through the
use of archival footage and re-enactments. Second, I reflect on the lessons I learned
telling stories about the past from the present, in particular the use of gender and
sexuality categories.
