In many ways, ‘Christy’ is the perfect film. And talking to the film’s director and co-writer provided many of the reasons why.
You’ll have to read to the end of this interview to discover the next project in the works, still at the very early development stages, for Irish filmmaker Brendan Canty and his longtime writing collaborator, and best friend Alan O'Gorman. Meanwhile, you’ve got Berlinale gem Christy to keep you company, for months to come. With a UK and Irish distribution deal in place and Charades on board selling the film internationally, you’ll get a chance to watch the quiet masterpiece which may very well take the top spot as personal favorite at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival.
While he was getting ready to premiere Christy as the opening film of the Generation 14plus at Berlinale, I talked to Canty via Zoom, courtesy of their publicist. We chatted about the snowy Berlin, a challenge for the filmmaker and he’ll tell you why, but also the ensemble casting of his brilliantly populated film, which takes complete advantage of its characters.
To find out more about Christy, do read my five star review on the ICSFilm website.
The question on everyone’s mind during this snowy Berlinale — did you bring your snow boots?
I only brought the shoes I’m wearing for the premiere which was a silly silly move.
The film comes from a short also titled Christy, and was the short a bit autobiographical?
No.
So who is Christy? Is he someone you know, someone you have seen?
I think he would have started as a few lads we played football with. When I say “we” I mean me and Alan O'Gorman, the writer — we’ve been friends since we were five and we play football together. There were a lot of players on our team who come from a similar area as Christy, and also come from similar backgrounds and stuff. And looking back, we were quite impacted by the role the coaches would have had on these kids. They kind of became father figures for them. They became like social workers. We’ve wanted to make a film about those kids and I only kind of realized this recently, when looking back at the very early drafts of the story, I think that’s where Christy originally came from.
When you made your short, did you always know you were going to develop it into a feature film?
We were trying to write it as a feature film. We couldn’t crack it, we’d never written a feature before and it just didn’t feel like we could get it working. One day, we noticed that in the midst of all these ideas, which were a bit of a mess, there laid the bones of a short film. So we just parked the feature and pursued that. When we made the short and when we cast it, especially, we came across all of those kids that kind of inspired everything but also some of their stories are of people they knew, or we met in the area and that gave us a lot of ammunition to make the feature then. We had so much to draw on!
I could say the film wrote itself but of course it didn’t! It was a lot of work, but we had so much to draw on, characters we knew and could write about. And when we sent the short around to people, everyone said the same thing: “there is such a world in this short!” It’s called Christy but the film really is an ensemble piece.
He comes into this world that seems grey and dark and he seems to slowly turn it bright and colorful. I love that he’s called Christy too, wearing a crucifix around his neck that he chews on when nervous...
It’s a very Cork name. My wife is from New Zealand and there it’s a posh girl’s name!
Did having the short make things easier in securing financing for your feature?
Yes.
Would you advise that to other filmmakers, to go that route?
I don’t know. It really helped us. Proof of concept is good. Maybe if you’re a first time filmmaker, I don’t think we would have ever sold this film without people being able to see this world. Especially when it comes to kids like Jamie [Forde] who plays Robot — a louder than life character in a wheelchair. It’s hard to imagine, who would you get to play this character?
But maybe a short film for something more drama, more written, not sure it that would be the best way to go.
You have quite a pedigree in your video work, with Hozier in particular on ‘Take Me to Church’. Did that help or did people want you do that over and over again?
When I made the Hozier video, music labels where all going “can you make that exact video for our artist?” and it doesn’t work that way. But things always change. When people saw Christy they were finding out about me because of that short film. It’s a different world, drama and music videos. I’ve made a lot of commercials as well and I think that experience helped so much when it came to prepping for the shoot and dealing with financiers. I now have a lot of confidence in those meetings.
Your short was in 2019, the characters have all grown up, so how did you deal with that?
There was definitely a ticking clock, more from us to try and nail the script to get it into production, funding, there was a bit of pressure. And there was always the question that the kids were going to be grown up. But we answered that by writing for them older. Danny [Power, who plays Christy] for example was 17/18 when we filmed the short, so he was going to be 21/22 for the feature and that’s OK. But for the younger kids, like Robot who was 11, we wrote them as teenagers. If we made it this year, we’d have to write them even older, as they’ve grown so much.
When did you shoot?
August 2023.
How did you decide on the music in the film, both the soundtrack and the rap songs?
Since the short film, I have this thing, when finding first time actors — rappers make good first time actors. I haven’t been proven wrong yet. A lot of our cast, you’ve got the Kabin Crew from Cork, you’ve Ian who plays Jamie, a rapper from Cork, and it ended up being a collection of rappers in the film, so it made sense that the soundtrack would be Irish hip hop. And I think it really helps with the authenticity of the film. It was kind of a no brainer.
The score had to be something different. Creating the atmosphere of the film and what Daithí has done is something different. They were two separate things. Plus, all the rap songs are in the world of the film, on the radio, sang out during a party...
What was in your mind when you were casting the character of Christy?
When we were looking for Christy, we were looking for an actor who could maybe look like someone you wouldn’t like to meet on the street at night. Someone that the audience can judge wrongly. If you judge a book by its cover, you’d think this kid was trouble. But then someone who can, just like that, give you vulnerability. And Danny is just like that. He wasn’t even our first choice when we made the short film. He’d never acted before. He was my back-up option. The original actor I had for Christy, unfortunately for him, dropped out two days before the film. And I asked Danny “can you be Christy?” And he said “I’ll be whoever you want me to be.” And then he just flipped. A day later, I remember he was working nights, he showed up on no sleep, operating on Monster energy drinks and suddenly he was putting in this performance we hadn’t seen from him. He just needed the confidence to unlock that talent, the same we see from Christy, the character.
Life imitates art, really. He’s since gone from strength to strength, he’s phenomenal. He’s amazing, what a kid.
What have you got lined up for the future?
It’s been tough honestly. We have come up with ideas, it’s hard to find something that has the flow that Christy has. But we are working on something — me and Alan — a film set in 1916 during the Irish War of Independence. I’ve never wanted to do a period thing and I just learned about the youth culture of that time and I thought, I’ve never seen that! Dramas like that are always so serious and I was actually drawn by how people were actually like then. Kind of doing something like Christy but set in that time is really exciting to me. It’s in the very early bits, nothing set yet.
Images courtesy of Berlinale, used with permission.