Girl Talk
A documentary about the life experiences of ordinary Irish women? It seems a proasic way to burst onto the movie scene. But for KEN WARDROP His & Hers is the culmination of a lifetime’s work.
Tara Brady, 30 Jun 2010
When Ken Wardrop burst onto the Irish scene with the award winning short, Undressing My Mother, nobody was more surprised than, well, Ken Wardrop. There was, after all, nothing about his background – a Portarlington childhood, boarding school in Multyfarmham, a stint at Trinity reading Geography and Sociology – to suggest a life in arts and crafts lay ahead.
"I had no real interest in film or filmmaking," Wardrop admits; even time spent as a tape librarian in London's Frame House post-production facilities – his first proper job – failed to ignite his interest in the medium. "My former colleagues still think it's hilarious," he laughs. "I'm the last person they ever expected to make a film."
Returning to native soil, aged 26, with no plans "...other than a desire to do something completely different", Mr. Wardrop befriended a student of Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design & Technology and decided to apply for a course in production. He emerged, four years later as the filmmaker behind Undressing My Mother, an extraordinary six-minute film in which Mrs. Wardrop, Ken's mammy and a farmer's wife for 44 years, considers her body as a map of her life while disrobing.
"I don't have a cool filmmaking story to tell," Wardrop resumes. "I'm not one of those guys who picked up a camera at 12. But I did love listening in my mother's kitchen. And I love talking. So I realised those were the kinds of stories I wanted to tell."
It may only have been a short graduation piece but the film's stark emotional content impressed international festival audiences, took home more than a dozen awards, and sent Irish industry insiders into flurries of excitement. Interests were furthered piqued by the crew; Team Wardrop happens to include some of the brightest young things on the scene: producer Andrew Freedman (Adam And Paul director Lenny Abrahamson's younger cousin), composer Denis Clohessy and ace cinematographers Michael Lavelle and Kate McCullough. It's not a bad line-up for someone who insists he isn't a proper director.
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