Leading Irish documentary maker Ken Wardrop (Mom & Me, His & Her), co-owner with Andrew Freedman of Dublin-based Venom Films, was always fascinated by the way his niece Zoe began preparing for Christmas in the middle of the summer.
“She is a single mum and she has two young boys. She’d start in June or July to save for Christmas. I am always like ‘Zoe, don’t be stressing yourself. It doesn’t matter.’ I suppose as someone who doesn’t have kids, I don’t really appreciate or get how important a time of year it is.”
For many, the expectation that Christmas will be a perfect day can become a huge burden. “Invariably, it never really transpires that way,” the director says.
In his new doc I Hate Christmas, Wardrop is telling the stories of some of those folk who don’t necessarily find those few days in late December to be the most wonderful time of the year.
“I was looking around for an idea for my next project and I thought, you know what, it [Christmas] is a good time of the year to be exploring difficult stories because everything is a little bit more complicated when you see the jolliness of the season.”
At first, Wardrop didn’t know which people he should “cast” in the doc. He was keen to focus on grief because he realised how devastating it can be to lose someone in the holiday period. Eventually, he found five different subjects, all from different walks of life.
“They’re from the same area. I call it the Midlands [of Ireland]…we found very ordinary people. We do have a single mum in there but we also have a single dad, recently bereaved. He lost his wife through cancer earlier in the year. He has two boys and so it is particularly difficult for him. We met Annette, the lady who hadn’t seen anybody for six weeks,” the director explains how some of the film’s protagonists were chosen.
The documentary is being made through Venom Films [the company Wardrop founded with Andrew Freedman almost 20 years ago.] It was shot from late November to Christmas Eve – and the camera was then turned off just before Santa Claus came down the chimney.
During Cannes Marché this week, Vienna-based Autlook jumped on board to handle world sales. The film is set to close to picture lock and already has Irish distribution in place. Dublin-based Break Out Pictures is planning a November release.
“The message behind the film is universal. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a Christmas film,” Wardrop points out that the doc is as much about loneliness as it is about carols and mince pies. “The key message I take away from it is that we are all given a certain amount of time on this planet and the greatest gift is that time…it has been an overwhelming experience [making the film]. I cried my way across the six weeks. Even though these people are struggling and their stories are difficult, there is so much hope here.”
Screen Ireland, RTE and the BAI Fund have all thrown their support behind the film which also benefitted from the Section 481 Irish tax credit.
Wardrop and Freedman met at the National Film School of Ireland (IADT). Their short graduation film Undressing My Mother (2004) screened at Sundance and won a European Film Award.
“That was a great launch pad and we had a lot of opportunities,” Wardrop remembers the spectacular start that he and Freedman made. They realised quickly, though, that documentaries weren’t lucrative on their own. That’s why they set up Antidote, a sister company to Venom, through which they make commercials.
Several new projects are now in the pipeline at Venom. One of the most intriguing is Gar O’Rourke’s Ukraine-set Kuyalnik Sanatorium, set in an old Soviet hotel and medical spa complex in Ukraine. Here, in spite of war raging close by, the traditional mud treatments and electroshock therapies continue. This was pitched recently at Hot Docs Forum. Samantha Corr produces. Wardrop and Freedman are executive producers.
“It’s quite nice to have a film which is quite quirky, quite fun,” Freedman says of the film’s offbeat sensibility.
This isn’t the first time Venom has spread its interests to Eastern Europe. Wardrop also recently produced a short film by Gar O’Rourke called Kachalka, about the largest outdoor gym in the world which is in Kyiv. This was acquired by PBS for its POV strand, also by MUBI and by various European TV networks.
Venom has slate funding from both Screen Ireland and Creative Europe. It is now on the lookout for new projects.
“It seems to be a very special time for Irish filmmaking. We are going to be capitalising on that and making sure that documentary stays in the game too,” Wardrop says. He and Freedman champion auteur-driven theatrical documentaries. These don’t have to come just from Ireland.
Venom is continuing to expand. The company has just appointed Heidi Fletcher, an American producer and consultant based in Paris, as its International Development Consultant. (Fletcher has previously worked for France Television on its 25 Shades Of Docs strand and as Head of Sales and Acquisitions for ARTE Sales).
“Our ambition is to be making at least one film a year and have a co-production in operation too,” Wardrop says of the company’s current goals. They’re on the lookout for new projects from Ireland and beyond – and they now have the resources to kick start them. “We are very much opening our arms. We would love to be flooded with projects because it is a little bit a needle in the haystack to try to find the right one.”
Fletcher will be helping Wardrop and Freedman identify potential co-productions. “Although we’ve been around for quite some time, I think this new approach gives us an opportunity to market and brand ourselves,” Freedman states. Why the name? “Venom was a word which struck us – a fairly punchy and provocative word. We went through a load of names before settling on Venom. It worked well for us to have Venom and Antidote because we make money through ads…and then we lose it again through films. It’s this lovely round circle,” Freedman says of the company’s twin-pronged approach.
