The documentary Killjoy captures the personal and the political of family violence and gender activism

Published in The Conversation, 10 September 2024

Killjoy is a raw, emotional production that allows viewers a privileged insight into how the personal is political, and into the personal made public.

At 16, Kathryn Joy applied for a passport. To do this, they had to obtain their mother’s death certificate. After growing up in a house in which their father had killed their mother – an act he refused to talk about – Kathryn learned exactly how their mother had died: “gunshot wound to the head”.

The bare brutality of this information shocked them into looking anew at their father, escaping from small town to big city, spiralling into trauma-induced mental anguish, and embarking on a journey of self-discovery through tracing their family’s violent history.

Eight years of this journey are documented in the new Australian documentary Killjoy.