Helen at the Watershed

by Emma_Chappel on 06-May-09 10:13

Having read recent glowing reviews of Christine Molloy's new thriller, Helen, I was intrigued to see the film and hear from its co-director.

Described as a 'psychological thriller', Helen is the story of what happens to a girl who takes part in a police tv reconstruction of events of the day her college classmate, Joy, goes missing. It's a slow-burning, thoughtful film, which follows 18-year old Helen as she is selected by the police to take part and then slowly builds up a relationship with the missing girl's parents and boyfriend. Annie Townsend plays the eponymous character sparingly, her solitary life and upbringing in care having created a withdrawn character. But as she immerses herself in Joy's life, the story veers away from the anticipated exploration of identity theft and delivers a far more poignant conclusion.

This is the feature debut for Christine Molloy and her co-director (and husband), Joe Lawlor. They have previously been involved in making community group-based short films and describe Helen as the natural culmination of this 'Civic Life' series. The guiding principles were the same: the films consisted of long takes, were shot on 35mm cinemascope on relatively low budgets, and featured non-professionals from the local community. Christine Molloy also revealed that Helen was also shot in four locations: Dublin, Newcastle, Birmingham and Liverpool - the funding having come from four separate city agencies - and it's a testament to her filmmaking skills that the four locations knitted seamlessly together to form the backdrop of the story.

The story, Christine explained, evolved from discussions with the communities involved about what interested them. Identity is a common theme, both the identify of the community and that of the individual. And she was keen to stress that, whilst the press may have described the film as a thriller, she was more interested in exploring the theme of identity rather than the fate of the missing girl, hence the film's title.

Helen has played in 40 festivals around the world since it was made last year. It's received widespread acclaim and prompted comparison's with Steve McQueen's Hunger and Duane Hopkins' Better Things, but Christine Molloy describes the similarities as coincidence. Rather than consciously espousing a new trend in British filmmaking, she and Lawlor, she says, are still 'in the bear pit with everyone else' struggling to find new funding and new projects. However, this film is sure to give them a foot on the ladder out of it.

Tagged:Watershed, Helen, film, Civic Life

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