Jerry Rothwell Talks Donor Unknown
Filmmaker Jerry Rothwell has been behind documentaries such as Heavy Load and Deep Water. He is back in the director’s chair with his new movie Donor Unknown, which follows a young girl as she tries to find her sperm donor father.
- Donor Unknown is released today so can you tell me a little bit about the movie?
The movie is a story of two converging; one of a guy who spent his twenties and thirties donating sperm as a way of earning money and the other a young girl who knows that she is donor conceived and has come to a point in her life when she wants to know who that donor is and meet her siblings.
- So where did the idea for the movie come from and what sort of research did you do into this area as you developed the movie?
The idea came up when one of the producers was doing a drama for BBC Schools, it was about donor conception, and during that research process she had encountered Jeffrey and his story.
Then about a year later I got talking to her and we started talking about how that could make a very interesting feature documentary because it contains in one group of people a who set of issues about the way in which technology is changing families and relationship.
- Well that touches on my next question really how did you find out about the story of JoEllen Marsh and Danielle Pagano and of course Jeffrey?
Our first contact was with Jeffrey and then it turned out that one of the children, Ryann McQuilton, was studying in the UK so we met with her and talked to her then she put us in touch with JoEllen and Danielle.
Then it was just a process of meeting each of them and discussing what the movie involved. The film splits into two halves; part of it is retrospective it’s JoEllen talking us the story of how she came to know that she was donor conceived and the beginning of her search for Jeffrey and meeting Danielle.
The second half of the film we follow her on her journey to meet Jeffrey. I wouldn’t have wanted to make a film in which we organised that meeting for the camera - she was already thinking about meeting him but had held off until she was eighteen.
Then we talked to her about how would that be if we could come along and film that meeting and then you have to week out how to film that meeting without it becoming a media event.
- The movie is a very personal journey for the 'siblings' so how comfortable where they at letting you into that part of their lives?
I think for a lot of them it’s a story that they have told a lot to friends - they have a complex and unusual family so they are use to telling that story.
I think that JoEllen’s motivation to make the film was to de-mystify donor conception and make something that’s less sensational. So I think that she was up for documenting that process and her story becoming more well known and helping people understand donor conception.
- As well as following JoEllen you also meet up with donor 150 Jeffrey Harrison - he is an interesting character.
He is yes (laughs). I think that it would be a very different film if Jeffrey had donating as a medical student and was a health service administrator with a family of his own.
I think one of the interesting things about this film is Jeffrey is someone who has run away from a life living in a family and yet this family comes to find him.
And for me that heightens the questioning in the film - what is a family? Is it about blood? Is it about the people we live with?
- Having met Jeffrey and the way he lived his life how did you think that she and the rest of her 'siblings' were going to react to him?
It is a film about expectations and what they expect to find - from the moment Jeffrey came forward the children were having a certain amount of contact with him by email, so they did have a sense of who he was.
I was quite keen not to do too much I never showed JoEllen any film of Jeffrey because I thought that that was unfair and would influence how she saw him. I didn’t talk too much about Jeffrey.
- How did you feel when JoEllen met Jeffery for the very first time?
The challenge of that is t recognise that the meeting is far more important than the film and to try and let the meeting be as natural as possible - radio mics are a god send as they let be a lot further away and less intrusive on the meeting.
But JoEllen made the point that the meeting was always going to be awkward whether there was a camera there or not - and sometimes the camera makes it less awkward because there is something outside that you can refer to.
The way that we edited that meeting we tried to keep that sense of awkwardness to acknowledge that it was difficult and to raise that question that it’s not an immediate recognition between two people that they are as one.
- You also filmed inside the California Cryobank so how happy were they to let you behind the scenes?
They were pretty happy because I think that they want to be known as a place that offers donated eggs and sperm so they were pretty happy to film there.
I used that footage to create a layer that acknowledged that although the film is about a personal story and how it plays out in a particular family there a whole industry that underlies that has a whole load of other issues and motives going on.
- There is still quite a stigma attached to being conceived this way, it’s not something that is openly talked about, so what do you hope that Donor Unknown will do for this subject?
The purpose of a documentary this this is to provoke a conversation in a way. I think that the technology of reproduction way outstrips our capacity to think about it ethically because as a society I don’t think that we are quite up to date with the scientific developments that are happening - so I suppose part of why I made the film is to encourage a conversation about that.
The film always attracts people with personal experience, either they have been donors or they are donor conceived or they are thinking about donor conception as parents, so I hope that that enables those parties to go into that situation having been able to think about what that must be like and go into it with a little more knowledge.
- Last year we saw the release of The Kids Are Alright - which tackles this very subject - so do you think that Donor Unknown has benefited from the release of that movie?
I try to avoid watching stuff that is about things I’m making a movie about so I haven’t seen The Kids Are All Right - but by all accounts it’s a great film. I don’t know whether it has benefited but it tends to get billed as the real The Kids Are All Right.
But there are things that documentaries can’t do that fiction can - a film like that is much better able to show or imagine the impact on the family after that meeting I couldn’t do that without living with them for the next couple of years.
But then there are things that documentaries can do that fiction can’t - they can actually bring you the interesting and quirky things that life throws up. While they are different mediums I think that they do compliment each other.
- You have made a string of documentary movies so what is it about this genre of film that interests you?
I think the fact that documentaries are an engagement with the real world you get involved with people and try to find ways of telling their story - then you get involved with audiences in working out what those stories mean - so it becomes more than just about making a film it’s about the impact of that film and the discussions that follow it.
I like the unpredictability of documentary making because you will start making one movie and then events will take you in a completely different direction.
- Finally what's next for you?
I have just finished shooting a movie called Town of Runners which is about two girls in an Ethiopian village that has a great track record of producing long distance runners.
The girls want to become athletes and I have been filming them since 2008 as they try to have a career in running. So it’s a film about African adolescence in a very rural part Ethiopia.
Donor Unknown is out now
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Filmmaker Jerry Rothwell has been behind documentaries such as Heavy Load and Deep Water. He is back in the director’s chair with his new movie Donor Unknown, which follows a young girl as she tries to find her sperm donor father.
- Donor Unknown is released today so can you tell me a little bit about the movie?
The movie is a story of two converging; one of a guy who spent his twenties and thirties donating sperm as a way of earning money and the other a young girl who knows that she is donor conceived and has come to a point in her life when she wants to know who that donor is and meet her siblings.
- So where did the idea for the movie come from and what sort of research did you do into this area as you developed the movie?
The idea came up when one of the producers was doing a drama for BBC Schools, it was about donor conception, and during that research process she had encountered Jeffrey and his story.
Then about a year later I got talking to her and we started talking about how that could make a very interesting feature documentary because it contains in one group of people a who set of issues about the way in which technology is changing families and relationship.
- Well that touches on my next question really how did you find out about the story of JoEllen Marsh and Danielle Pagano and of course Jeffrey?
Our first contact was with Jeffrey and then it turned out that one of the children, Ryann McQuilton, was studying in the UK so we met with her and talked to her then she put us in touch with JoEllen and Danielle.
Then it was just a process of meeting each of them and discussing what the movie involved. The film splits into two halves; part of it is retrospective it’s JoEllen talking us the story of how she came to know that she was donor conceived and the beginning of her search for Jeffrey and meeting Danielle.
The second half of the film we follow her on her journey to meet Jeffrey. I wouldn’t have wanted to make a film in which we organised that meeting for the camera - she was already thinking about meeting him but had held off until she was eighteen.
Then we talked to her about how would that be if we could come along and film that meeting and then you have to week out how to film that meeting without it becoming a media event.
- The movie is a very personal journey for the 'siblings' so how comfortable where they at letting you into that part of their lives?
I think for a lot of them it’s a story that they have told a lot to friends - they have a complex and unusual family so they are use to telling that story.
I think that JoEllen’s motivation to make the film was to de-mystify donor conception and make something that’s less sensational. So I think that she was up for documenting that process and her story becoming more well known and helping people understand donor conception.
- As well as following JoEllen you also meet up with donor 150 Jeffrey Harrison - he is an interesting character.
He is yes (laughs). I think that it would be a very different film if Jeffrey had donating as a medical student and was a health service administrator with a family of his own.
I think one of the interesting things about this film is Jeffrey is someone who has run away from a life living in a family and yet this family comes to find him.
And for me that heightens the questioning in the film - what is a family? Is it about blood? Is it about the people we live with?
- Having met Jeffrey and the way he lived his life how did you think that she and the rest of her 'siblings' were going to react to him?
It is a film about expectations and what they expect to find - from the moment Jeffrey came forward the children were having a certain amount of contact with him by email, so they did have a sense of who he was.