FOR documentary filmmaker Sue Bourne the phone call from Philadelphia was a good news, bad news number.
Yes, said her associate producer, the Irish Dancing World Championships which Bourne had been so keen to make a film on were indeed “absolutely astonishing”. But Bourne probably wouldn’t get in the door when the contest came to Glasgow because this was a world that no filmmaker had ever been given permission to enter.
Bourne, originally from Alloway, Ayrshire, did get in, and the result, Jig, has its UK gala screening in Glasgow next week. Built around the March 2010 contest, Jig is a whirl of stories about the dancers, the families, the wigs, the make-up, the whole razzle-dazzle. As one parent in the film says of her first visit to a competition, “It was like a Shirley Temple convention.”
Bourne, whose previous award-winning films include Mum and Me, which focused on her mother’s Alzheimer’s, and My Street, a portrait of her neighbourhood, knew nothing about Irish dancing when the idea first came to her, but she knew a cracking story when she heard it. “You’ve got people training and training and training, investing a huge amount of effort in something and at the end of it there’s a competition they may or may not win, so you’ll get drama, tension and conflict along the way.”
Then there were the people involved. “It’s about family life. It’s not like The X Factor. They’re not working because they think they are going to get fit, famous, rich or anything.”
An Coimisiún le Rincí Gaelacha, the governing body of Irish dancing, invited her to submit a proposal. “They were quite tough and said, will we control the film? I said absolutely not. You have to trust me. You let me in, I make the film I want, if that’s not what you want it won’t happen. I have to have complete editorial control.” They agreed, and the film was on.
Though the finals were set in Glasgow, Bourne’s film took her to New York, Galway, Moscow and Rotterdam as it followed various dancers towards the big week in Scotland.
These are interesting times for documentary makers. At the television level there’s the success of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, the widely-watched, and much tutted-over by columnists, Channel 4 series. Then there is the growth of art house documentaries, such as the Oscar-winning Inside Job.
Bourne found Gypsy Wedding “fascinating, and fascinating that it fascinated everyone else. And you need a bit of controversy. Eight and a half million people watching documentaries. Oh please, more.”
Bourne had her own taste of controversy when she made Mum and Me. While many thought it a deeply moving and honest look at living with Alzheimer’s, others criticised the film for being a bit too honest. Bourne, with her daughter Holly, had filmed her mother (who remains in a nursing home in Alloway) for three years with no aim in mind. When it was suggested she make a film, she hesitated long and hard.
“I didn’t know if I wanted to take this material and put it into the public domain. It was a huge decision to go public with it. I had a lot of reservations, and my executive producer had a lot of reservations.”
He couldn’t understand at first why wanted to do it. She explained to him: “Every film I’ve ever seen about Alzheimer’s is grim yet my mum is not, and our relationship with her is not. I want to show people that you can still have a relationship.”
Three years on, any regrets? “No, it’s done, it’s out there, there’s no point. I thought about it at the time. I knew some people wouldn’t like it [but] I was surprised at some of the vitriol I got which was unbelievably horrible. Some people just thought Holly and I were monsters. Luckily there were great debates going on between those who thought it was a marvellous film and they learned a lot and thought we were brave to do it, and other people who thought we should just be locked up.”
Bourne started out as a trainee journalist with STV before moving to the BBC. She’s seen trends in documentaries come and go while maintaining her own intimate style. “If there’s one thing about my films they’re honest, and true, and I’m very protective of the people I make my films about. I don’t think you need to play cheap tricks with people. I’m not there to send them up or be horrible about them.”
She gets to know her subjects before she lets a camera anywhere near them. Bringing a camera into the equation is easier, as in Jig, when the crew member in question has worked somewhere cool before. “The kids loved Joe the cameraman because he did Doctor Who. When they heard that they were just beside themselves.”
This weekend Bourne, who works between London and Glasgow, is off to the Hot Docs festival in Toronto, where Jig is showing. It’s been a late segue into feature docs for the fiftysomething Scot, and she’s keen to get going on two more.
“I’m a storyteller. What I love is being with people, I’m curious about people, what makes them tick. I like finding the extraordinary in the apparently ordinary. Everybody has a story.”
Jig has its UK gala screening at Glasgow Film Theatre on May 4, then runs at the GFT from May 6-12, with Sue Bourne Q&A on May 11. Tickets: box office, or www.glasgowfilm.org.
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