The American musician, composer, artist and academic will be touching down on Aussie shores for the Melbourne International Film Festival in just a few days. Presenting two very special performances at Melbourne Recital Centre, Julia Holter and her live band – Sarah Belle Reid, Tashi Wada and Corey Fogel – are joining forces with The Consort of Melbourne Choir to bring to life Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 French silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc. We caught up for a chinwag with the acclaimed muso ahead of the shows.

Do you remember what the experience was like the first time that you saw The Passion of Joan of Arc? This movie is unreal – it is a clear classic in that it follows its own path and could exist at any point in time. It's truly incredible. The first time I watched it was actually when I was asked to do a live score for it back in 2017, but it was so sublime that even watching it on a laptop and thinking about the potential score while watching made me choke up and feel crazy.  

What was it about the film that drew you to creating a live soundscape for it? The first time I was commissioned to do a live score to this film was by Unsilent Cinema in Los Angeles. They had proposed this film and another, and I chose to do this one. The cinematography is incredibly iconic, striking and dizzying – it is fun to work on sound with because its starkness allows space for the sound somehow. There is an invitation, to me, for something that captures Joan's psychology because the whole film feels somewhat centred around her state of mind and psychological state – the anxiety, fear and other natural human responses to oppression, the gaslighting and torture. Also, on a basic level, the medieval setting is something that drew me in – I am really into medieval stuff!What has changed about the experience of performing a live score to the film between the first time you did so and now? Honestly, every time I have performed this score it's been exhilarating because the film is so unbelievable. Also, because I am always working with great musicians. The 2017 project was really fun – it was with great musicians who I still work with – and is definitely a prototype, but this current score is quite different as it involves a choir and has a lot more variety in the composition. Almost all of the elements of the 2017 version are still there, but now there are choral parts that add a lot of text from the film dialogue instead of just the medieval chants that I had set. Also, the trumpet (played by Sarah Belle Reid) functions like a double of my voice – both of these "voices" are linked to Joan's character in my mind – in this version, which lends an interesting and surreal feeling to the score  

This special MIFF performance will unfold with the Consort of Melbourne Choir – how does including performances from people of the city you are performing in change the experience? It is fascinating and informative to play with musicians who I haven't yet met but who work together regularly, and to get a glimpse into their world and what they do together as artists. I learn so many new things.What do you think it is about a live music performance combined with a film screening that makes it such a visceral experience? Obviously, a live scoring of a film is engaging no matter what because the sound is being played in real time, but I think, sadly, that some people are not used to hearing live musicians play and so something like this can be quite special. The sound quality of a live performance – assuming it's more than just playback – where you have multiple sources of sound in different places can be more dimensional than a recording and can lend itself to a more properly "cinematic" experience than you would get otherwise. I think that music and sound play a huge role in the experience of a film. The liveness of the music could make the film feel that much more "real" itself – kind of like putting on 3D glasses!

If you could perform a live soundtrack to any other film of your choosing, what would it be? Oh my gosh, I have no idea. This is a tricky one for me, probably because often the films that I love, I love partially because of their sound and music! I wouldn't want to change them. Maybe it could be interesting to have an alternate approach though – maybe what makes The Passion of Joan of Arc doable for me is the fact that apparently Dreyer didn't like any of the scores that were made. So, I didn't feel like the sound or music of those existing versions were necessary elements to keep the same – I didn't feel weird about making the music and possibly stepping on a unified creative vision.