A lifelong addiction - an interview with the director of Chasing Dad

Chasing Dad: A Lifelong Addiction is a new film by director Phillip Wood.

It's an intimate and unflinching exploration of his relationship with his father, a man addled with drug and alcohol addiction for over thirty years.

We spoke with Phillip to understand why he took on such a personal project, and how the process of making the documentary has affected his relationship with his father.

What made you want to make this film?

The whole situation with my Dad and me was madness; he was dying, yet I couldn’t even face picking up the phone to him. To be frank, I really didn’t like him and I thought this was the only way - to have a camera between us - which would force us to confront our past before it was too late.

I didn’t believe in the cliche that you have to hit rock bottom in order to get clean; he had hit it many, many times, much worse than what we see on the film, so I was equally fascinated with the world which he chooses to surround himself with. I wanted to show beyond the actual addiction of the drug itself and more about the person and the environment in which an addict can function for over 30 years.

How did you broach the subject of wanting to start filming your dad?

I had the idea to make a documentary, but before I began any sort of proper production process, I filmed our first conversation, which we see a little bit of at the start of the film. He seemed so unfazed by the camera. There was a kind of dual, discordant, magnetic and repelling appeal and it felt like it would work as a film from the go.

How difficult was it to make this film?

I nearly quit, twice, but kept going out of a guilty sense of abandoning him and wanting to follow it to some sort of conclusion. The benefit of his naturalness on camera was that the story - the constant shifting dynamic in our relationship - emerges naturally over the course of the film. I never knew how long the lies would persist for, and it made you question everything about yourself. It’s a very psychological film. But the lies gave me impetus go to back and chase for truthful answers.

The hardest scenes to film were after the hospital visit when they couldn’t extract blood from his veins, he was told he would die if he continued. Yet, ten minutes later, he was back drinking - right in front of me. When I went back to his house, it was clear he was using again and I really didn’t like the people who were living there. It was disturbing and scary, but we somehow reached a turning point after that. It was a process of talking and talking and talking to get through the bullsh*t. All that said, there were some light moments, I had to Google ‘electricity abstraction’ and some of his stories were so far-fetched stories you just had to laugh at them.

Has your relationship with your father improved?

Not really, although I understand him and his situation more. We are still a long way from ever having a relationship based on trust. What I understand less is how he has been able to fall through all state/local authority apparatus. For me, his situation also paints a stark picture of how inadequate our understanding of addiction is, and how society deals with it.

It was an eye-opener when he was made homeless. There seems to be an arms-length approach to helping addicts, which is understandable for the families involved, but less so by external professionals.

What do you hope people will take from the film? Do you have any advice for anyone going through a similar thing?

The film is filled with moral ambiguity and many will find it an uncomfortable journey. It wasn’t a simple film to make, nor are the underlying narrative forces which underpin addiction an easy topic to dismantle. But I hope that people relate to it. There are no easy answers when it comes to addiction and the effects of it in families, and the film doesn't offer answers.

What it does offer is an insight into how addiction affects those beyond the drug taker themselves - it’s a narrative which I believe will be interpreted and understood in many different ways. While it’s clear that it’s a cautionary tale of what happens when you are addicted to hard drugs for such a prolonged period of time, it’s also a story of how those who are innocent and caught up in the crossfire can overcome conflict - by tackling those things which are often not seen, nor spoken of, for fear of shame.

Watch Chasing Dad: A Lifelong Addiction on BBC Three from Sunday 10th April