Artist and filmmaker George Gittoes, 74, and his wife, performance artist and singer Hellen Rose, 60, have devoted their lives to making anti-war art. It’s in the world’s danger zones that they feel most connected and in love. Hellen Rose and George Gittoes in Bucha, Ukraine.
Credit: Kate Parunova/Courtesy of Gittoes Films George: I met Hellen in 1991 at The Gunnery in Sydney’s Woolloomooloo, an artists’ squat. She was singing and I was immediately taken by her beauty and her wonderful voice. I’m 15 years older and was married and didn’t think such a beautiful woman would be interested in me.
I asked her to be in an exhibition I was curating. She suggested she hang upside-down naked in it, which she did. A friendship developed.
In 2007, my wife and I separated and I moved into a hotel in Kings Cross. I invited Hellen over to see the rough-cut of my documentary, The Miscreants of Taliwood [about how the Taliban was destroying the Pakistani film industry]. When I opened the door, we knew we loved each other.
Later, at hers, she played AC/DC’s Highway to Hell and we drank vodka. It was so romantic. In 2010, I got an Oxfam grant to go to Ayubia [in Pakistan] to make three films.
Although I’d worked in war zones for years, I’d never let anyone come with me as it’s just too dangerous. Hellen just turned up at the airport unannounced. In the end, I cast her in one of the films, Moonlight , as a heroic vampire slayer of werewolves.
Loading I’ll always have Helle.