Hometown first screening for documentary maker’s first feature-length film

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KIRAN Acharya has said next week’s screening of his documentary in his hometown of Newcastle is better than being shown in Hollywood or at Cannes film festival.

On Thursday 14 November his film, ‘Gama Bomb – Survival of the Fastest’, will open the Full Moon Film Festival.

The film charts the story of the thrash metal band ‘Gama Bomb’, who – coming out of lockdown – reach a crossroads of sorts in their 20th year of performing.

The documentary took three years to make, and was entirely written, shot, directed and edited by Kiran before his 40th birthday.

He told the Mourne Observer how he was feeling ahead of next week’s screening.

“I cannot wait. It is a day I won’t ever want to forget because it is a realisation of so many dreams. It really is.

“A lot of people dream of making a movie. And get thwarted for many reasons.

“I’m very aware to set out to make a film and to have done it is a dream that I did not think I could realise.”

Kiran, who is now 41, grew up in Newcastle and went to school at Down High. He was a paper boy in Newcastle and did work experience at the Mourne Observer as a teenager.

He studied English Literature, Journalism and Media in Scotland and Scandinavia.

After graduating, he worked in Belfast and then as an editor in Bangalore (Kiran’s father is Indian). He then returned to London and got a job as a digital editor.

Music has always been a big part of his life and he written for Kerrang and the Quietus website and spent much of his adult life making music videos.

That led to his career in filmmaking.

He was making videos for a health company but in 2016 he decided to go freelance and then began a journey of working on bigger budget documentaries with friends of his.

One of those included ‘Dispossession, the great social housing swindle’, a film about the housing crisis. That experience would be crucial when he embarked on his own feature length project with the band ‘Gama Bomb’.

Kiran has known the band for a long time. He and lead singer Philly Byrne met as young journalists in Belfast in 2006.

Kiran had made a number of music videos for ‘Gama Bomb’.

This is a feature!

In August 2021 Kiran was shooting a video for the band’s EP ‘Thunder over London’, when it became clear to him that he could make a film.

“We were in Newry doing that. At the same time there is this impulse to shoot off hand for behind-the-scenes or social media content.

“I remember resenting the idea a little bit because I look upon it as labour, and because I had spent the past couple of years working on longer form documentaries.

“I literally had two cameras, one in each hand, one was shooting the video and the other for social media content.

“I remember thinking ‘no, this is too much work’.

“Then I thought, this isn’t social media content, this is a feature. If we chose to redirect the energy over time I sensed there was a story to tell and something more meaningful than a year’s worth of Facebook updates.”

Kiran pointed out that he wasn’t looking for an idea, but rather the idea presented itself to him.

“I wasn’t out to make any film, it was that the boys’ stories were worth documenting which led to this documentary.”

The shooting of the movie involved charting the band’s emergence from Covid, taking on tours of Ireland, the UK and Europe and their various changes to line up, leading to their desire to play major music festival Hell Fest.

The current band includes Philly, Domo Dixon, John Roche, Joe McGuigan and Chris Williams, though the film highlights some of the departed members, including long-term drummer Paul Caffrey.

Seat of the pants

The band have been gigging and touring all over the world for 20 years and have released seven albums.

Kiran explained that the documentary’s structure was not apparent in the early days of filming.

“I can’t emphasise enough how intuitive, seat of the pants and possibly slapdash the whole thing has been. We would see what we would shoot, see what it amounts to and see how we could add to that.

“I just committed to backing myself, in a very exploratory way, but with a brilliant rapport with the guys.”

He said he told the band about the film straight away, but it took a long time for them to realise the scope of what he was planning.

“They thought it was big talk, I think.

“I don’t think that anyone realised that I was doing what I was saying I was doing till a few years down the track, till they first saw the film. They were astounded, they said ‘You have made a proper film’”.

Philly Byrne is the lead singer of the band, which he started with his friend Joe McGuigan, among others. He concurs that the early days of Kiran filming were interesting.

“Half the time when your friends say over a beer they are going to do something they are just saying that and it never comes to fruition so I suppose I should have known better, that he was the sort of man that would deliver on what he said he was going to do.

“Quite soon Kiran was filming us outside of the venue. He was filming everything. He threw himself into it with gusto. He was getting on the plane, getting in the van and following us around.”

The process of making the film meant that Kiran had to follow the band to as many gigs as possible and film as much as he could to tell their story. But that was demanding for someone who was working as a freelancer.

Kiran said: “In a very practical way I was operating as a one-man film maker and having to go to places around Europe like the Netherlands or France and venues around the UK.

“Fortunately, I have the autonomy to do that and understanding family and friends around to do that.

“The biggest challenge is justifying the effort when there was no framework.”

Financially, he had to pay for everything.

“I was earning with one hand and making the Gama Bomb documentary with the other.”

He was working on his freelance work and shooting the Gama Bomb film at the same time just to keep his business afloat.

As his day job is a film maker and editor he has all the tools to edit a film, but also being a freelancer he has autonomy in his life so that he can apportion time to making the film in spare time.

“If you commit to and do a little every day then you can push it.

“The biggest challenge was sustaining the effort, given that it was an independent film with no backing or budget in place.”

With each shoot the true story of the documentary began to emerge.

“It became clear that it was about friendships and the camaraderie that comes from a nothing to lose scenario. And also the colourful world of punk and metal in the UK.

“Once I knew what the end of the film was and what I wanted to show, then I would move on to the next phase, which was a first edit.”

The final footage shot was taken at the gig in Voodoo, Belfast in 2022, bringing to an end a year and a half of shooting.

Then he had to begin editing the film.

“The sheer quantity of material was intimidating,” Kiran said.

“My brief to myself was to make a film that tells a story for the cinema screen, and if it made me laugh then it was in.”

He realised he needed to focus his mind.

“In 2023 my 40th birthday was coming up and I said to myself ‘Are you going to be able to make good on this thing of writing, shooting and directing a film for the cinema screen before your 40th birthday? So, it was do or die.

“So, I booked a work in progress screening at Newcastle Community Cinema.”

Rob Manley from the cinema, whom Kiran knows, was the man who hosted the work in progress.

NCC was fundraising to have the heating fixed, so this event helped towards that.

“We had that screening. Rob and NCC have been the greatest supporters of me as a filmmaker.

“It was the first time that anyone saw the film.

“Those who were there were delighted but I was horrified. There were so many shortcomings. They were technical nuts and bolts things.”

Spurred on

That shock to the system was just what he needed.

“That spurred me on. I felt at that point I had been caught in public without my clothes on.”

Philly Byrne, the lead singer, had a similar response but for a different reason.

“When I saw the rough cut, I was horrified. I had had a few nights out, it didn’t leave me in a the best head space to watch something that was focused on your own face and your own voice.

“It was an unexpected introspective journey. I was put off myself.

“I was excited to see the film and I was delighted to see the reactions of my father, and my friends, and Joe who is in the band. The reaction was positive.”

The first screening was not the final cut, and so the pressure was on Kiran to complete the film in time for the Docs Ireland event.

It was after the work in progress screening in Newcastle that Kiran contacted a lady called Sara Gunn-Smith, a producer based in Belfast.

“I said I had an idea and asked if she would look at it.

“She was thrilled and could see the value in it, the warmth of the story, the Northern Irish temperament, the jokes.

“Then every week for more than a year Sara and I have formed a creative partnership to work on films including ‘Survival of the Fastest’.

“It is the weekly cracking the whip that Sara has offered and enthusiasm and optimism that got me through the editing process.

“It was her that encouraged me to enter into the Docs Ireland event.

“The only reason the film exists is because of a positive and open-minded creative collaboration with Sara. She is the biggest champion for the film there is. Sara knows the cinema landscape.”

Kiran continued to work towards getting to an assembly cut, then a rough cut and then to the show cut that finally exists.

The film was accepted for an Irish premiere at Docs Ireland, which is a large documentary festival held in Belfast in June.

“That was a major thing because this Gama Bomb film was programmed alongside the new films about Blur and Mogwai. That was another spur.

“I was working towards these very public deadlines.”

But he made it and the film was shown at Docs Ireland in June.

Kiran said: “We had a wonderful premiere at Docs Ireland. Sold out the room. We had a standing ovation. It was unbelievable.”

Philly Byrne, Gama Bomb lead singer, said of that showing: “I went with my wife and that felt like a momentous occasion.

“The transformation between the first viewing and the second viewing at Docs Ireland was enormous.

“He turned it into a film that, even if I wasn’t in it, I would say it is a banging film.

“If it goes in front of more people internationally, I think he has the potential to make a big success of it. It has a surprising amount of heart and a strong personal story, which is the story of us being friends.

“It does a great job of portraying my best friends’ personalities.

“What makes it strong is that it is about something really specific, it that it is about this weird band, from an obscure place, with weird accents. But it is a universal story of men who are friends who are preserving something between them.”

Now Kiran has completed the film he is looking forward to bringing it across Ireland and the UK and beyond.

Friendship

For the next year, Kiran plans to enter the film into as many festivals as possible.

He is having London and Dublin premieres.

“I think it is wonderful that this film exists because it shows that commitment to a creative enterprise can get you what you want.

“One of the crucial principles is that I am proud of telling a warm story of friendship from Northern Ireland.

 “Sometimes when viewed from the UK, Northern Ireland has a skull and crossbones against it. They see only the worst of life in Northern Ireland.

“Philly and the boys from Gama Bomb are great ambassadors for Northern Ireland and they delight people wherever they go.

“I said to myself that if I can capture even ten percent of the craic and the warmth that these lads are having I will have done my job: I think that shines through.”

Better than the Oscars

Film fans from Newcastle will be able to see that shine through next Thursday when the film is shown at the community cinema.

Kiran is excited about the prospect.

“That is better than the Oscars. That is better than Cannes. I mean that.

“To have it showing in Newcastle feels it has come full circle. When I was a kid there they would only occasionally show films in the Newcastle Centre. I remember bawling my eyes out to the Macauley Culkin film ‘My Girl’ when the little lad gets stung to death by bees.

“I think the cinema is very important for communities. Local cinema is for community and not for blockbusters anymore.

“To go to a cinema with your members of your own community and watch a film, there is a sanctity about it.

“To do that in a community and in Newcastle is more meaningful to me than in some festival or business experience.”

‘Gama Bomb – Survival of the Fastest’ will be shown at NCC on Thursday 14 November at 7.30pm.

www.gamabombfilm.com

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