Canterbury Film director & scriptwriter Alexander J Farrell on not taking things lightly

“I felt so out of control. I would come back from that camp and lie awake at night and I’d be petrified I was missing something important, it gave me such anxiety.”

During the beginnings of the refugee crisis, back in 2015, Canterbury’s Alexander J Farrell and a film crew jumped in his mum’s old Mercedes van (with a questionable MOT certificate) and headed on to the Continent to document the movement of migrants leaving Syria and heading to Europe.

Driving to Turkey with a “shitty little camera” and a few lenses, a journey began both in terms of the breakout documentary Refugee that featured on Amazon (and still does) and Alexander’s as a filmmaker.

“I was gone a long time, it was a three-year process,” he recalls.

The film follows a father and his two sons separated from their mother as they cross the borders into Europe. With the mother seeking asylum in Germany, the documentary centres on a military camp in Greece where the boys were stationed for almost two years.

“I stayed with them documenting their journey to be reunited,” he says. “I went into that project wanting people to see what was going on. It was the first thing I ever did. I bit off more than I could chew, but it was a hell of an experience.”

Almost 10 years on and Alexander has just released Making A Killing, a documentary about corruption and malpractice by insurance companies behind the US healthcare system.

But a recent move into the narrative space has seen him delve into the world of scriptwriting and directing feature films.

“I wanted to be a documentary filmmaker, originally. I loved the reportage and stuff,” he explains. “But I’m also a little too emotional for it. And I get far too attached to it.

“I’ll still incorporate that into all the work I’m doing, though, the scripts I’m writing. Much of it is based on personal truths… true stories of deep-rooted social messages. So it’s finding its way into the narrative space as well. I want to make movies that have something to say and have an opinion.”

WHAT REMAINS OF US

Currently in post-production, Alexander has written and directed new psychological thriller film What Remains Of Us, starring Kit Harrington in one of the lead roles.

“It follows a 10-year-old girl as she begins to suspect there is more going on behind closed doors and that there’s more to her parents’ relationship than meets the eye,” he says. “It’s a film about domestic abuse. It’s a film about addiction. It’s a film about unconditional love and living in a home with a monster in many different ways.”

The production saw Alexander in his biggest directorial role to date, heading out to ‘the middle of nowhere’ with a full cast and crew. It was a sensation he will never forget.

“I was blessed to work with some phenomenally talented cast members.,” he says. “My now dear friend, Mr Kit Harington, was a director’s dream, kind, patient and just so deeply connected and transformative.

“Having that many people every day waiting for your command was exhilarating and frightening at the same time,” he says. “But I made it very clear at the very beginning how important it was for me that this was a collaborative effort. It was a family project and everyone’s opinion was valued! A lot of the time, their opinions and their ideas are much better than mine. It became one huge family, all the way from the producers to the guys and the girls making all the sandwiches in the morning. We all played football together at lunchtime, it was wonderful.”

With the film due for release in 2024, seeing it through from script to screen has been an intense project but one Alexander is keen to repeat.

“You forget there’s a world that exists outside of it when you’re in it. And I think you have to, actually. I remember just driving into that, onset and seeing all those huge Panavision trucks and, you know, people waiting for me to arrive. It’s definitely not something I’m going to take for granted.”

Arguably the marker in the sand as far as scriptwriting is concerned, Alexander and his writing partner Greer Ellison have penned a new film that will be released on Amazon in the coming months entitled How To Date Billy Walsh.

With a cast list that includes Sebastian Croft, Charithra Chandran, Lucy Punch, Tim Downie, Nick Frost and Cobra Kai’s Tanner Buchannan in the title role, it is set to be a monster, distributed to more than 240 countries.

“Greer and I spent two weeks on a couch in Northern Ireland watching every single teen flick ever written to try to find a new, unique way to tell this story,” he says. “It’s about two best friends. And Archie has been in love with Amelia since he first laid eyes on her and the day he plans on telling her it’s the first day of the last term at school. But his plans are interrupted by a really cool, really good-looking American exchange student. It’s a beautiful story about childhood love and having the balls to say it when you need to say it!”

And while this script wasn’t necessarily reflective of personal experience, Alexander had an inkling that the phone-call from Amazon might arrive.

“I guess sometimes, you know, when you’re writing a script, there’s magic,” he says. “It’s just in the air. It’s on the paper. It’s in the room. It’s in the ideas. It’s in the paint you’re throwing and we just knew this one was special. It was really quick between conceptualising it and it being greenlit. I just remember opening the door and screaming when we got the call.

“It’s gonna be the first time we’ve really seen something that we’ve written on such a scale. You know, the characters that you love, and that lived in your head for so long only on paper, are now going to stare back at us from screen in real life. It’s surreal.”

With new scripts and directional opportunities in the offing, Alex has a big year ahead and fully intends to make the most of the opportunities that are arising.

“I’ve only just got that break and I do not plan on letting it slip away,” he says. “I do not plan on getting complacent and the momentum slowing down. It was hard to get here, so I’m not gonna take it lightly, and who knows, there might just be something mega in the making - or not, it could just be science-fiction.”