Associação Cultural Videobrasil

Revolving Door is not just the title of the award-winning documentary film by Alexandra and David Beesley. It is also the expression that designates the perverse cycle that condemns prostitutes in different parts of the world to drown in debt—and, consequently, to depend more and more on sexual activity—, every time they are arrested by the police while working, and have to pay fines to regain their freedom.

More than documentary filmmakers interested in the universe of the sex industry, the couple knows what they are talking about: as an adolescent, Alexandra experienced the everyday grievances and risks of prostitution, after leaving her country England to adopt Australia as her home. “In essence, I had no family, money, or home, so I went out to work the streets,” describes the filmmaker.

The perspective of someone who knows firsthand what it is like to perambulate, come rain or shine, seeking clients, her experience with organizations that provide assistance to sex workers in Melbourne, and her involvement in community television projects would later result in Alexandra’s first documentary, PCV: Prostitute’s Collective of Victoria (1989).

In the film, she presents the many activities of the organization and places under discussion aspects that she would develop, in other forms, in later projects: the prejudice inherent in society’s view of prostitution; and the power relations that are established between prostitute and client. Most of all, she regards prostitution as a job, and prostitutes as people—who have ambitions, interests, and values as regular or anecdotal as any other’s.

The recording of life in the streets also gave Alexandra a companion. While making her audiovisual recordings, she met David. They started working together, got married in 1990, and joined forces—he is the director and cameraman; she is the researcher and producer—to imprint the freshness that exudes from the British television series Red Light Girls (1998). The series, which counted on general direction by Mark Jones, was screened in several European countries.

Far from the typical embittered prostitute with no expectations in life, explored, and marginalized, the Australian “red-light-zone” girls recorded by the couple have comfortable living standards and many plans, for which they work. They drive their own cars, exercise daily, meditate; they want to be Hollywood stars, conquer the fashion world, or retire and have children. “Our approach was so successful and innovative that we were sent to Los Angeles in order to do the same with the series’ North American characters,” the filmmakers explain.

A few projects later, in 2001, Alexandra and David established their own production company, Beeworld. Based in Melbourne, they work as filmmakers, producers, scriptwriters, and animation artists doing artwork that articulates different languages and platforms, from documentaries to sites to installations. Revolving Door (2006) is the duo’s first animated documentary film.

The heavily autobiographic work led Alexandra to revisit a past filled with bad memories, but also questionings of public interest: the impact of prostitution on the population of the beachfront, bohemian suburb of St. Kilda, in Melbourne; the action of the police; the dilemmas involved in the decision of resorting to prostitution for a living. “Revolving Door was a very difficult work for me to do, because it is a deeply personal trip,” says the filmmaker.

Featured, among many other exhibitions around the world, in the St. Kilda Film Festival in June 2007—a session that had a special flavor for the authors, because this is the place where Gillian, the protagonist of Revolving Door, works—, the film does not end on the screen, it extends into the virtual world. In the Beesley’s company Web site, a link guides visitors into a collection of additional material on the life of the character, such as records of her stays in public institutions, her personal diary, sounds, and images.

The electronic platform is also part of Alexandra and David’s most recent project, The Tale of the Right Hand of Spider Lil, a horror story about a 19th-century prostitute that features animation work once again. In the territory of contemporary recordings, the couple is also preparing Gunya Girls, a documentary film on the story of women who served sentences in a juvenile detention center in Australia.