As a trans filmmaker and cinematographer, Jude Ella is keen to for the industry to tell more trans and gender diverse stories based on lived experience.
“It’s a really painful and hard journey, and we’re in an industry that tells stories.
“The more stories are told, the more empathy there is and the more ability we have to connect and to transcend negativity in society,” he says.
Jude, who has worked as a filmmaker and DOP for more than 10 years, speaks to IF during Trans Awareness Week, November 13-19 – the week before Trans Day of Remembrance.
As a cinematographer, Jude’s credits include shorts such as ConnectIRL, Riceballs, and Destination Kuala Lumpar. He’s also shot more than seven music videos for Rufus du Sol, as well as for Baker Boy, Vera Blue, and Taylor Henderson, and won ACS Gold, Silver and Bronze awards.
In 2017, he launched multi-media publishing and production company Atlas of Consciousness, producing films, podcasts, books and talks. Atlas’s shorts include Anthony Simes ‘A Story of Life’, Simon and Laura ‘Unconditional Love Healing’, and Gerard O’Dwyer ‘A Man with A Voice’. The latter was commissioned through Down Syndrome Australia and screened for the United Nations to celebrate World Down Syndrome Day.
Since transitioning in 2021, Jude has felt supported by his networks in the industry.
“I’ve got the same networks that I had before I transitioned; I didn’t feel impacted or any change in terms of how much they cared about me. It’s just more that there is probably a very subtle sense that it is more challenging for women to be working in the industry than it is for men.”
Jude’s filmmaking journey started when he was just 14, going on to study at UTS and then AFTRS.
“I had two close friends that were girls and we loved music to bits, and one wanted to be a rock journalist. One wanted to be a rock photographer and I said I’d be a rock director. Two out of the three of us went on to do exactly what we said. I ended up pursuing film with all gusto. I looked up the best course I could find and that was UTS. At the time I was actually emulating Cate Shortland’s pathway.
“Obviously being female at the time, I wanted to see what another female director had done. I literally went, ‘Oh, she went to UTS and then she went to AFTRS. I’m going to do that’. And that’s the truth. And if I ever get to meet her one day, I’ll say, that’s exactly what happened.”
Although he has had his fair share of challenges, Jude thinks that filmmaking “is quite an incredible and rewarding line of work to do because of the teams you get to work with, because of the visions you get to implement, and you get to strive toward a common visual. It can just feel like quite an incredible working environment.”
Of the hurdles in his career, he says: “As a female cinematographer you have to sort of work so much harder to be acknowledged than you do as a male. Predominantly I was working as a female cinematographer and so you’re really battling those hurdles.”
However, he doesn’t see the industry as a lonely one; it’s the bonds that form between filmmaking teams that have kept his passion for it.
“What I still, and forever will, appreciate about filmmaking is that it’s team based. You never really get to feel too lonely in filmmaking. There are portions, but it’s not as elongated as other art forms. It really is a collaborative medium. It’s like being on a party.”
Jude has big dreams for Atlas of Consciousness, including “world domination”, hoping to emulate the model set out by podcast publisher Gimlet Media.
In particular, he is keen to work with young podcast producers; over the next few months he will be working on the second season of Atlas original podcast, Erasing Poverty. “And as with all the Atlas podcast, having no clue where it ends up, it takes me on a journey.”
Film also remains on the cards, including “making stories of people who really have transcended big challenges.”
“For all the people that I’m collaborating with in the Atlas, all our dreams are kind of to get the shows to Netflix.”
Jude also recently completed a Diploma of Music Performance which he will use in tandem with his filmmaking. “They live next to each other, the art and the music world.”