A filmmaker's curiosity about an unfinished Chaparelle demo has become Bleeding Hearts, a black-and-white documentary following Zella Day and Jesse Woods as they built their Wimberley-based band and a relationship all at once. The film makes its Texas premiere at Austin Film Festival, which runs October 29 through November 5, and the band will play a short set after the screening.
When a friend sent Andrew Morgan an unfinished demo from a band that barely existed, the Los Angeles filmmaker knew little about country music and had no ties to Texas. By the end of the song, he wanted to know everything about the two people singing it. The friend explained that Day and Woods had just started dating and were launching the band together; a pairing Morgan couldn’t shake.
"Anyone who’s brave enough to mix a romantic relationship and a working relationship and a creative relationship just really intrigued me," Morgan says.
The timing also mattered to Morgan.
"Most music docs are made decades later, looking back, and everyone’s rich, and in wheelchairs, and everything’s worked out, and there’s no drama," he says. "I always thought it would be that first year, where it’s volatile, and it’s scary, and you don’t know if it’s gonna work."
Starting the film before Chaparelle had released their first album meant betting on a band with no guarantee it would survive. Morgan made that uncertainty part of his pitch, telling the couple up front that he had no idea whether the project would work out, but that he wanted to follow them through the making of the record anyway.
The couple agreed, and filming began a couple of weeks later. It stretched across approximately a year and a half of recording sessions for their debut album, Western Pleasure, plus a trip to New York to sign a record deal, an engagement, long runs on the road, and all of the stress and doubt in the moments in between.
"There weren’t agents, or managers, or lawyers," Morgan says of making the film. "Just some strangers who decided to trust each other, and they really … you know, had their guard down."
Morgan says that the exhaustion of the road seemed to wear away any pretense and led to some remarkably candid conversations between the couple. Over time, their relationship and their love became the center of the film, and Morgan notes that it he witnessed the same courage and vulnerability in standing in front of a crowd performing, as opening up to a new partner.
That candor is what makes this film really work. The band’s unpolished, old-school blend of country and rock plus Day's voice — a bit like a grittier Dolly Parton — is hard not to fall in love with, even for those who don't love country. The black-and-white, which could easily read as affectation, feels honest and grounded here. Morgan also lets the hard moments play out. Viewers who don’t know the outcome could spend much of the film bracing for a breakup. (Spoiler: The couple married in April near Wimberley.)
The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, but Austin's screening holds special meaning. Much of the story unfolds in and around the city, including shows at Scoot Inn and the White Horse.
"This is gonna be the Texas premiere, which, having seen the film, you know how special that is," Morgan says. "It’s like a homecoming of sorts, and there’s a lot of people who are gonna see the film for the first time that were in it, and around it, and a part of it."
Bleeding Hearts will continue on the festival circuit this fall while the team lines up distribution. For now, badges, passes, and screening details are available at austinfilmfestival.com for the documentary's screening Wednesday, November 5.
