How to DOCUMENTARY with Award-Winning Director Julie Cohen

It’s easy to make a documentary…right? Find a hot-button topic, pick an interview subject eager to talk, and just hit record. But you know the saying: minutes to learn, a lifetime to master.

If anyone has mastered the form of making documentaries, it’s Julie Cohen.

Fresh off her prior Oscar nomination for the documentary RBG and now facing what she hopes will be an Academy Award for the intersex documentary Every Body, Julie Cohen stopped by to share the lessons she’s learned from a lifetime producing stories that hook audiences, win awards, and leave a lasting positive impact.

NOTE: intersex (noun; adjective): an umbrella term for people whose anatomy doesn’t fit super neatly into a binary box

STEPHENIE MAGISTER: Now that the documentary Every Body has been out in theaters and spent time at the top of streaming lists, what impact have you seen?

JULIE COHEN: The real thing that stands out is how minimal, how missing [intersex] representation has been. Intersex people were responding just to the very fact of the film. The other main reaction from viewers has just been, 'Wow, I had no idea.' The existence of intersex people was quite minimal, even among sophisticated, educated, progressive people.

STEPHENIE: How did you select which people to interview?

JULIE: I selected people that an audience really feels like they can connect to [regardless of the] viewer's own personal background is. That had an impact I hadn't thought through so clearly—about what a nice kind of mirror that feels like for intersex people.

STEPHENIE: You chose three great subjects. For me, that's the beauty when you find a good subject. You don't really have to do anything. Just hit record and let them talk.

JULIE: Right, although I will say, Steph, that [what you said] is maybe a little bit or very true, but it's also harder than one would think.

There's such a temptation to be the one who's talking all the time, or to be the one that's sort of imposing one's own idea of what the story is rather than just letting people talk, and then as an avenue seems fruitful, try to get them to tell me a little bit more.

[For example], one of my favorite scenes of the film is the scene where Saifa goes to see himself as part of an art exhibit in Berlin. [The exhibit] features very artful full-frontal nude photos of himself. And that came about because I was planning a trip to go visit Saifa and do a little bit of filming where he lives in Manchester England.

He was like, 'Oh, you know since you're coming to Europe, would you…? There's this exhibit that I'm in that's in Berlin. Would you like to go to that?'

STEPHENIE: It's a powerful inclusion, especially because of his early mention of his vulnerability around his body. You can feel the growth. You can feel, like you said, the personal connection to the people involved. That changes your perception of the topic being explored. It's no longer just a Wikipedia article that you may have looked at once.

JULIE: Right, right.

STEPHENIE: What hooks you into turning something into a documentary?

JULIE: First of all, there are some beautiful documentaries that are extremely painful. That's not the kind of film I like to make.

I'm 59, so at this point in my life, I gravitate toward things that have a little bit more love and positivity. [It’s important to select] people who overcome obstacles. People who are on a journey. All the things that make something a story.

In the case of documentaries, you need to include people who are willing—and ready—to share their stories on camera. [Being willing and being ready] are two very separate things. I spoke with people for this project (Every Body) who were willing to be part of it, but I wasn't sure that they were ready.

I've been making docs for quite a long time, so I know how things unfold in unanticipated ways. Most of those things are quite good, but there also could be challenges, and in this story, I was trying to steer away from causing problems.

STEPHENIE: What topics interest you but might need to be explored by other filmmakers?

JULIE: There's a lot more to be said about intersex people. Because of the lack of foundational knowledge, it seemed like it was going to be important to give a fair amount of what I called Intersex 101 in the film near the top in a way that a documentary filmmaker sometimes doesn't really like to do.

STEPHENIE: Why is it sometimes better to explain things at the beginning of the documentary?

JULIE: Sometimes you would like to be a little bit more like, 'Oh, it's gonna unfold.'

But I didn’t really want somebody to go through the first 20 minutes of the film confused about [the definition of “intersex”]. We need to actually have the people in the film explain the basics right out there in front, then we're going to answer some questions as you go along.

STEPHENIE: Yes, and I think that that does fundamentally shift the experience of the documentary from “what is intersex” to “what is it like to be intersex.” It's a totally different conversation.

JULIE: Right.

STEPHENIE: I love whenever I see intersex characters in media, but I can’t help but notice how often intersex characters, much like trans characters, are so often played by people who aren’t intersex.

What do we do to empower casting directors to hire more intersex people?

JULIE: There’s a few steps in the cycle that need to come out. For casting directors to start including intersex actors, you need to have some intersex actors [who are out].

[There’s also] this bigger societal issue of creating an environment where it feels safe and OK to be out as an intersex person. [We] need to step back and just have some education and some basics. It's hard to have an environment where people come out as intersex when everyone's like, 'Huh? What's that? Is it trans?'

STEPHENIE: What do your collaborators empower you to achieve that you wouldn't be able to do on your own?

JULIE: In this case, I felt like it was needed and important to bring on an out intersex person who also has written a book and has a real understanding of these things.

[Shana Knizhnik came on] as a consulting producer who could help guide things, but also look at cuts of the film and have thoughts on things that felt potentially like a problem in the end. We actually saw much more eye-to-eye than I might have expected going into this, or that I've sometimes experienced on some past projects. That was great.

Our editor Kelly Kendrick also—[the editor is] always a really good collaborative relationship. Because they're coming in later in the process, lots of stuff is filmed, and they're seeing scenes without all the baggage of knowing what went into all the decisions. He’s looking at all the footage and doesn't know that much about the story. When he first sees the footage, he’s like, 'Oh, this is the thing that really stuck out to me as interesting.'

And then between us, we can work out what each scene is going to be.

STEPHENIE: You've had such a big career. Is there any advice you’d give to yourself at the beginning of your career versus where you are now?

JULIE: Well, my career has sort of evolved in different ways over time.

I worked in more traditional broadcast journalism for a long time with radio and TV. I developed lots of really important skills in that period. The downside of that period was that I wasn't [able] to pursue telling the kind of stories that I wanted to tell.

There’s a template. If you come in to work as a producer on Dateline, you're trying to tell stories the way that they tell stories.

STEPHENIE: What stories did you discover you wanted to tell?

JULIE: Our whole society has a negativity bias. We're drawn to conflict. And as a result—no disrespect to the people who run the broadcast networks, and even the streamers—but as a result, the shows that tend to be most popular are shows that focus on conflict, division, murder, and crime. Those are important stories—I'm not opposed to telling them—but after a certain number of decades in that mode, I really wanted to focus on stories that were more positive.

One thing that I really love about the story of intersex activism over the past couple of decades is that although there's a real traumatic side to this story, I think it's going in the right direction. I think things for a baby born intersex 10 or 15 years from now will be substantially better than they were for River, Saifa, and Alicia (the three featured subjects of Every Body). Medical schools are starting to think about it.

STEPHENIE: How have you seen people under different umbrellas come together?

JULIE: I would say the out trans and activist trans community gets a huge amount of the credit for that, just by opening up conversations that, as River said [in Every Body, opening up conversations] that have made it possible for intersex people to say, 'Oh, it's us! We have a story, too.'

And the whole notion that when there's a significant difference, instead of your parents thinking, 'This is this nightmare, I have to be totally ashamed,' [they can instead see that] no, maybe it's OK. Maybe it's fine. I love the part in the film where Saifa is saying to that mom, 'No, it’s beautiful.'

And of course, as Saifa points out, it's not just intersex people that have sex variations. It's all—we've seen some bodies. They're all kind of different.

STEPHENIE: In what ways have you discovered your own differences as worthiness?

JULIE: When you start out as a kid, you think of worthiness as trying to compare yourself to other people, and to be more like the ones that you see getting patted on the head. And the whole process of growing up is understanding that's not how it works at all.

It's what distinguishes you from other people—and what your differences might be—that are the most interesting and worthy things about you. What's different about you makes you you.

I would also add in terms of identity issues—and there is a relationship here I think between fundamental ideas of feminism, understanding that what is important about oneself is not what you look like—is a lesson that takes us a lifetime to achieve.

I want to cry when I think about the divisions that have come out between trans women and cis women. I actually think it's a relatively small percentage of cisgender women getting into this whole thing of wanting to distinguish themselves [from] trans women. There's a lot of intersectionality, and some of it, I don't know where it's going. I hope it's in the right direction, but you know, we'll deal with it when we get there.

STEPHENIE: What do you suggest we keep in mind while we’re on the way?

JULIE: In the current environment—in this country anyway—I frankly don't really see a whole lot of things going in a great direction.

It's important for people to try to keep their eye on the notion of supporting one another. Just because someone else's struggle isn't the exact same thing you've been through, doesn't mean that it shouldn't be your struggle.

Looking out for each other is the best way for us as individuals. If I look out for my siblings, then my siblings might look out for me, and it's the better thing to do even if they don't.

STEPHENIE: Julie, my last question, what do you hope you're remembered for?

JULIE: I hope to be remembered as someone who played a role in the change of society. I hope that I'm remembered as having played a role in a greater understanding by non-intersex people of intersex people.

STEPHENIE: Based on the response to Every Body and the rest of your work, I believe you are already being remembered as that person.

Julie, thank you for taking the time to stop by and speak with us. We’re crossing our fingers that Every Body gets you your first Oscar body—err, statue.

JULIE: Absolutely. It was a pleasure. Thank you, very nice to meet you, bye-bye.

Watch the full interview:

Every Body is now available On Demand.