Using a cast of non-actors and a DV format, Perry Ogden has made an extraordinary directorial debut. Simon Hudson talks to him about the theory and practice of Pavee Lackeen.

Pavee Lackeen is the story of Winnie, a young traveller girl who lives with her family on the edge of an industrial site in Dublin. The film makes no attempts to dramatise or overemphasise the characters or situations; it's just an honest portrayal of life in this much maligned and misunderstood community. Pavee Lackeen won Best Feature at the Galway Film Fleadh in July, it has played in the Critics Week in Venice, and recently screened at the Toronto Film Festival.

The film's story started five years ago, when photographer Perry Ogden published Pony Kids, a book of photographs of traveller kids and their horses in Smithfield's marketplace. Funnily enough the book garnered interest from Hollywood; suddenly he was being approached by Hollywood production companies wanting to buy the film rights. This was quite possibly the catalyst for Perry's first foray into directing and producing.

Simon: So, was Hollywood's interest in Pony Kids a catalyst for the film?

Perry: I got offers from Hollywood production companies, and I met with some of the people. I thought, I don't want to do anything more with the ponies. I feel like I've done that in exhibitions and books; I've been round and interviewed all the kids. But I would like to dig deeper and explore the life of one of these kids a bit more. I asked myself the question 'what chance do they have in mainstream society? In the kind of modern day post-economic-boom Dublin?' So I got together with Mark Venner, who is an old friend of mine who also writes and has done some film work. I just said, 'Mark, I don't know where this is going to go, but I'd love to explore it and see if we can come up with something through working together'. And so we started researching by going out and meeting some of the pony kids again; seeing where they were at in their lives and somehow, through that, we ended up in the children's court in Smithfield.

You must have heard some amazing stories while you were there.

Yeah, it was amazing, because 99.99% of the kids are underclass, without any family support. So we sat there when we could devote time to it, on and off for two years. We would start following particular cases, coming back in for their next hearings and so on. This is where we became more and more aware of the traveller kids in court, and also settled kids from the age of eight, nine, ten, who were sort of homeless; they were in court purely because they had been found on the streets and were at risk, their parents had vanished or weren't interested. So we became very interested in that kind of moment, of a kid around ten years old, and started developing stories based around that.

The full article is printed in Film Ireland 107.