the ballad of vicki and jake

ian thomas ash
director

ian thomas ash is from upstate New York, and graduated from the University of Plattsburgh with a degree in English Literature and a minor in Theatre. Upon graduation he moved to Bato-machi, a rural town in Japan, where he taught for three years. During this time he began to experiment with filmmaking by making documentaries about the things around him. His early pieces include short films about a modern Japanese Noh play, the tea ceremony and a promotional video for a Japanese singer. He also made his first feature-length film, documenting us (2003), which was selected in July 2003 for exhibition in the free programme of an international film festival in Tokyo. After earning an MA in Filmmaking from the University of Bristol (UK) in 2004, ian returned to Japan where he is working on his next documentary project.

 

film credits

the ballad of vicki and jake, director/ producer. documentary/ 84 min/ DV/ UK/ 2005. A family struggles with drug abuse, homelessness and their relationship with the filmmaker.

Green Pastures, director. promotional video/ 6 minutes/ DV/ UK/ 2005. Interviews with guests and staff of a retreat center.

ACTA, sound. documentary/ 20 min/ DV/ UK/ 2004. A youth theatre festival seen through the eyes of the youth performers and facilitators.

Chewing Gum, writer/ editor. fiction/ 10 min/ 16mm/ UK/ 2004. A coming of age story about a young boy who steals a piece of gum.

documenting us, director. feature/ 83 min/ DV/ Japan/ 2003. The lives of five friends living in rural Japan change when one of them is brain-injured in an accident.

 

director’s statement

The exciting but scary thing about making documentaries is not knowing what is going to happen. the ballad of vicki and jake is in many ways not at all the film we intended to make. It is, however, the truth - as much as a documentary can be - about what happened during the nine months we spent filming vicki and her son, jake. It isn’t an easy film to watch as much as it wasn’t an easy film to make; yet to miss the joy and the irony is, I think, to miss the whole point of the film and indeed the very reason to continue struggling when life gets tough.

- ian thomas ash

 

Ian blogs at Documenting Ian

 

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