FANTASTIC FEST 2025 REVIEW! Director/co-writer John Spottswood Moore spent 10 years making his documentary When We Were Live with his co-writer/producer Keeley Steenson. They assembled a slice of Austin history through the delights of Public Access cable on ACTV (Austin Community Television). For those unfamiliar with Public Access, these channels came about as cable companies built cable infrastructure. Part of the arrangement that lawmakers insisted on was that in exchange for the disruption of cable build-out, the companies were required to give cities airtime for their own programming. Austin in the 1980’s was a place of high weirdness, magic, and wonder. It functioned as a kind of “San Francisco East” hippy mecca, with cheaper real estate. It was an easy sell to get local characters to make programs for ACTV.
A variety of offbeat and downright bizarre programming appeared on ACTV, including the years-long adventures of drag queen Carmen Banana and her band of friends and supporters, making Carmen’s Banana Cooking. Given the limited number of recipes that call for bananas, the show quickly turned to musical numbers and local events to fill out content.
Other shows competed for space on the schedule as the channel attracted attention. There were call-in shows about music and dating. One that saw tremendous popularity was Ask Livia LIVE!, starring Geophysics PhD student Livia Squires. She found herself with an urge to perform, taking calls from a velvet couch and answering questions about topics callers wanted to discuss. Most of the calls were about sex and relationships, but also covered a broad spectrum of other subjects. There were dance programs similar to American Bandstand, showcases for local musical acts, and in-depth discussions of local and national issues. There was a matchmaker show where single people could call in, and the host would try to help them find a date.
“…a slice of Austin cultural history through Austin Community Television…”
When We Were Live shows that ACTV wasn’t all just quirky fun, but also wound up witnessing and documenting history over the years. As the 80s wore on, the AIDS epidemic hit Austin, and Carmen’s Banana Cooking became a central provider of AIDS information and campaigning for condom use and safer sex. Also, more than once, the KKK marched in Austin, and ACTV covered it, including capturing footage of police brutality against protestors of the march.
This film is clearly a labor of love for Moore, who worked for a decade to bring it to the screen. He spoke about what kept him going in an interview with the Texas Standard. “… if I don’t put this out there, I think some of it’s never gonna be seen. And this stuff is the history of the city and just in general, they’re insanely emotional, beautiful moments. So knowing that I had really tapped into something that was much bigger than me, and also I think very much apropos to people not just in Austin, especially in today’s politics when we talk about white supremacy and Carmen being a drag queen and like all these things, just how relevant this is…”
When We Were Live is entertaining and lively, edited for a snappy pace. Some of the more bizarre video snippets are startling and will make you laugh out loud, while others are so offbeat you’ll wonder WTF you just saw. The experience as a viewer is a feeling of great privilege that these golden moments of history were saved and are shared now. The film is a reminder of how strange Austin culture used to be (and in some ways still is) and transports us back to a time of innocent weirdness before AIDS and 9/11.
When We Were Live screened at the 2025 Fantastic Fest.
"…entertaining and lively, edited for a snappy pace."
