Hezekiah has been married to Joy for 40 years, and she was buried only a few weeks ago. Now he has her prized roses to protect, a family bubbling with unrest, and a devious fox determined to wreck the garden. In An Ode to Joy, writer-director Ashleigh Ashley's 13-minute short, the late matriarch hasn't entirely left. Guided by Joy's subtle supernatural presence, and with a little help from his grandson Harvey, Hezekiah (Rudolph Walker CBE) finds the strength to defeat the fox and keep her memory alive.
The story is loosely based on Ashley's late grandfather, also named Hezekiah, and on her "huge/complicated multi-generational family." It is her directorial debut. The film is a standalone short and also a proof of concept for an 8x30' comedy-drama series. Ashley describes it as "a love story disguised as a fox battle." The film puts an elder Caribbean-British man at the centre of his own magic, and it treats mature love, grief, and mischief with equal seriousness.
Key Takeaways
- Ashley shot the film in her own home and dressed it largely with pieces from her grandmother's house, which let her reimagine the memories of a grandmother now living with dementia.
- When time ran out on day two, Ashley rewrote the ending on set. She and her collaborators replaced a planned sequence with a single bittersweet pull-out shot, which she believes became a better ending.
- The short sits in the weeks after the events of a planned 8x30' series. With Rudolph Walker's backing, the team hopes to take that series to the BBC and Channel 4.
Ashley spoke with us about family, fearless playfulness, and the village it takes to make a film.
Interview
What drew you to make this film, and why this story, why now?
This story is loosely based on my late grandfather, Hezekiah, and my huge/complicated multi-generational family. An Ode to Joy is infused with the familiar feeling of family and home.
Fifty percent of seniors living alone report feeling isolated, and depictions of our elders are often less than complimentary. An Ode to Joy gives us pause to think about aging, our parents' and our own, in a different light. We rarely have tales of mature love, let alone ones exploring the messy, stubborn, playful, and sometimes piss-soaked tangents of grief that come from losing a lifelong partner. An Ode to Joy is a love story disguised as a fox battle. It dares to be funny, and it's a chance to put an elder Caribbean-British man at the centre of his own magic.
What surprised you most about the filmmaking process, creatively or logistically?
We shot the film in my home, and dressing the space was like taking a time machine back to my own childhood. I sourced much of the dressing from my grandma's house. She has dementia, so turning my living room into something from my grandparents' generation was a way of reimagining her memories.
I have two kids, so living on a film set for a long weekend was crazy for them too! But it was so nice to share a slice of my childhood with them, and for them to get a glimpse into their great-grandparents' world.
We kept the green armchairs.
What moment in the film feels most like you, or like something only you could have made?
The touch of magic in Joy's portrait, played by Annette Hinds, is totally me! If I were to die, I'd totally possess a portrait of myself to watch over my family. And for better or worse, my face shows my EVERY thought!
The moments where Hezekiah gets to be playful and not act his age are totally me too. Him dancing alone to the radio? That's me. Him stalking into the garden with a water gun full of wee? I'm full of bright ideas. And that cathartic moment of release... yeah, that's a lot of me!
What was the hardest creative decision you made while making the film?
We had to rewrite the ending on the day. Our leads had scheduling conflicts, the shoot was ambitious, and we had a teeny crew, so we started to run out of time towards the end of our second day. To have an ending at all, we had to drop our original plan to shoot a sequence of moments for a longer goodbye for our Joy.
Instead we opted for the classic one-shot pull-out to capture the bittersweet goodbye and reveal the work Hezekiah had put into the garden since his revelation. It was tricky to come up with something under time pressure. But thanks to my amazing AD and DP, I think we landed on an even better ending than the one we originally had!
What tool, technique, collaborator, or mindset shift helped most during production?
This was my directorial debut, so there were many, many lessons I'll take into my future filmmaking. Two things stood out.
Working with a script supervisor for the first time forced me to interrogate some of my creative and directorial decisions on the spot. It was a great lesson for my ego: it takes a village to make a film work so beautifully.
Working with a seasoned actor like Rudolph Walker was also a fabulous lesson in trusting your actors. At first I gave him prescriptive direction so he felt supported. As the process went on, I realised that little prompts gave him the space to really bring my grandfather to life.
That village is the best thing about independent filmmaking. You cultivate a community around the project and let each person take ownership of the film in their own way.
What does it mean to have your film selected for HollyShorts London?
I missed the deadline for the US edition, so I was totally gassed to make the cut on home turf! Being officially selected for the third edition of this international BAFTA- and Academy-qualifying festival is a filmmaker's dream.
The team behind HollyShorts really believes in supporting filmmakers long term, and I look forward to remaining part of the community!
Where do you see this film going next?
This 13-minute short is set in the weeks after the 8x30' series we have in development. British TV legend Rudolph Walker is backing it, and we hope we've captured the soulful tone of the show in our short and established the world our series will be set in.
We depict a Caribbean household proudly. The world is rich with texture and dialect, and it all beats with a uniquely Black British, intergenerational heart. We're working towards a TV format that pushes the boundaries of the narratives we currently see around Black British people on TV.
The dream would be to collect a few more selections, and maybe even a win. Then we'd like a partner to distribute the short. After that, bring on meetings with the BBC, Rudolph's current home on EastEnders, and with Channel 4 to develop the series.
This film is bang on the kind of stories I love to tell. It subverts societal norms, here with an elder behaving youthfully. It gives a poignant story a playful twist, here by curing grief with a water gun full of piss. And it has a touch of magical realism. I love to blur the line between the real and the imagined, the supernatural, or the unexplained. At the core of all my work is a desire to take people on an unexpected, emotional rollercoaster, and I can't wait to bring the other stories on my slate to life with the same vigour and vim.
Main Cast & Crew
- Writer/Director: Ashleigh Ashley
- Producers: Aaron Briggs, Lydia Idakula
- Cast: Rudolph Walker , Raychel Addo , Jeremiah Geoghegan , Annette Hinds
- Casting Director: Emma Garrett
- Cinematographer: Jasper Enujuba
- Editor: Donya Majidi-Maguire
- Production Design: Rema Kehsay
- Costume Design: Lauren Miller
- Sound Design: Sam Clunie
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