Already sitting on four BIFA wins for best casting, editing, original music and music supervision, and with 10 more nominations up for grabs, Kneecap from Rich Peppiatt has grabbed the independent film scene by the bollocks and introduced the wider world (or at least those who hadn’t been paying attention to their musical ascendance) to Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap – who have used music as their own form of protest against the English rule of the North of Ireland and infringement on the use of their native language – whose anarchist spirit you can’t help but be infected by. Peppiatt discovered the group after a gig in his local Belfast and after a baptism by fire, getting to know the lads over a delicate few pints, he persuaded them to make a film with him. Whilst Peppiatt’s narrative feature debut is fictionalised the lives, issues and continued battles fought by Kneecap and others like them who reject the ongoing colonisation of their country and suppression of their linguistic heritage is all very real. Kneecap premiered at Sundance in style walking away with the audience award and has been charming and disarming audiences, with the band also famously refusing to play at SXSW because of the arts festival’s ‘super sponsorship’ with the US Army and platforming of companies supplying weapons deployed in the genocide in Palestine. The tone of the film was clearly set for Peppiatt as he ran with the anarchic, chaotic and passion fuelled timbre of the group and delighted in playing around with techniques which might not have fit in a more traditional music biopic. A film that we’ve been endlessly quoting here at DN, we invited Pepiatt to join us for a chat about his bewilderment over the reactionary backlash to the film before it had even screened, how not coming from Ireland freed him to take shots at all sides and standing strong against conflicting notes from funders in order to not sacrifice the integrity of his film.
[The following interview is also available to watch at the end of this article.]
Rich, it was lovely, hanging out with you at the BIFA nominee event last week and we spoke then about you having to answer a lot of the same types of questions in interviews. So, I’m not going to ask about casting Michael Fassbender or about the boys taking acting classes, but I do want to begin by asking whether you call it Northern Ireland or the North of Ireland?
If I called it Northern Ireland the band would give me a good slap. It’s the North of Ireland. It feels like a very small semantic shift but that’s the power of language, just that little change to acknowledge the idea that Ireland is one country – look on a map. An island called Ireland is one country. Obviously there’s a lot of history there, there’s a lot of politics involved but ultimately why is one little bit of it on the very top owned by another country entirely? It doesn’t make any sense. That’s not to say that the people who were born there and see themselves as British haven’t got a right to be there. But, it’s the North of Ireland and one day it will just be Ireland.
Whether you agree with it, whether you don’t like it, it does start a conversation. A joke can be a Molotov cocktail that lights up a situation.
Turns out your producer, Trevor Birney who I was also chatting with, knows a lot of my family who are from the North and the next day I ended up having a conversation with my mum, who left when she was 16 about the divide and the lasting trauma which we had never properly spoken about before!
One of the cool things about making a film like Kneecap is that it is making people have conversations. Kneecap’s music is satirical and it was like killing sacred cows and talking about issues that are often shrouded in secrecy and silence. They were prepared to say it out loud and certainly when we decided to make the film, we were going to do the same thing. We’ll take the piss out of every side, we’ll take the piss out of everything without fear or favour and have some fun with it. I think we connected over the fact that humour is something that is really important when you’re trying to open up a dialogue because sometimes by crossing over that line of acceptability, it does open up a conversation. Whether you agree with it, whether you don’t like it, it does start a conversation. A joke can be a Molotov cocktail that lights up a situation.
The film is obviously heavily politicised but pure gas! How did you approach the tone, especially in relation to humour and politics?
It’s funny, it’s one of those films that people say, what is it? Is it a comedy? Is it a drama? Is it a dramedy (I hate that word)? Is it a musical? It doesn’t really sit comfortably within any particular box. I think that’s partly because we never set out knowing what genre of film we were going to make. We just set out to make the film and the comedy of it is rarely something that we were trying to do, it was just the tone that felt natural. And that’s funny. The boys were funny and in the post-game analysis, perhaps the humour works well because we didn’t really try at it. We just allowed the natural scenarios, the natural environment to lead it rather than sit in there and let’s write some jokes.
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The guys are funny and you do have the best comedy line I’ve heard recently especially as it comes mid sex scene: “I want to blow you like a Brighton Hotel!”
Well, thank you. That was one of the lines that had to be fought quite hard for. I understand the sensitivities around it but if you want to be doing stuff that is interesting and irreverent you’ve got to be pushing that line and be right up against it and to be honest, if you aren’t getting pushed back then you’re probably not trying hard enough with the humour. Before the film even premiered at Sundance, The Daily Mail did a double page spread hit piece on it – they hadn’t even seen the film at the time. Suddenly we were worried thinking, if this is the reaction we’re getting before the film’s even been screened anywhere, it’s going to get real ugly which we absolutely embraced – bring it on! But I’ve actually been surprised at how little controversy it’s caused. There hasn’t been a huge amount of backlash. I don’t know if that’s to do with the fact the film’s actually done quite well and won awards means that it neuters it. It becomes harder to criticise when the film’s doing well.
If you want to be doing stuff that is interesting and irreverent you’ve got to be pushing that line and be right up against it.
In the North of Ireland, in Belfast, we have had criticism from the unionist community and I find that quite sad. There’s something about Kneecap generally which means the unionist community really don’t like them and it’s unfortunate for me, as someone who lives there, that they’re not celebrated by every community. You have three working class lads who’ve come from nothing to become a great musical act who have their own film that puts the city of Belfast on screen in a really favourable and fun way – that should be embraced, right? And the fact that it’s still so sectarian and divided means that because they are from the other side we don’t like them. I think if you look at unionism in the North of Ireland you should be asking why stories like Kneecap aren’t coming out of their community? Why are you not able to tell your story in the same way, instead you spend so much time criticising everyone else and being negative when in fact, making art is always a positive act. It’s always about creating and saying something. It seems like a lot of the time that the art is coming from the Catholic community rather than the Protestant community. I don’t really know why that is and even saying that is a very controversial thing to say. But I do feel because I’m not from there, it makes it easier for me to say it. In a way, I think that if I’d have been from Belfast, if I’d been either Catholic, Protestant, Unionist or Republican I would have found it hard to make the film as you’d be seen as having an axe to grind but because I wasn’t, it made it easier to machine gun all sides.
I was speaking to another filmmaker about the overall terror of Trump being in power and the state of the world but these fraught times in politics throughout history galvanise artists to create narratives people are craving. Hopefully, with Kneecap you’re opening a door to more of those conversations and viewpoints.
I hope so. When I think about the films that inspire me like Trainspotting and La Haine, they were a revelation the first time I saw them. It feels like that type of filmmaking that was really in your face and punchy is not as prevalent as it once was and I think Kneecap maybe harks back to that 90s period and has that vibe. Those are films that inspired me and if there are young filmmakers out there that see Kneecap and realise they can play those sort of stories in an irreverent way then much love to them – I look forward to seeing them.
As a filmmaker, you get to play around in this film. We’ve got lots of different techniques, claymation, off-kilter camera angles… How much fun was that?
One of the hardest things in film is working out what the tone of the film is and I was lucky in the jumping-off point because the band were a real band, and they had their own music which was going to feature heavily in the film. It was going to be shaped around these tracks, it’s going to be punky, it’s going to be fast cut, it’s going to be madness, anarchy. From the very first draft of the script, you’re writing it knowing “I can jump here, I can jump there” and there are no rules. If anarchy is your tone, then the rule book is out and it means that suddenly you can break the fourth wall, you can drop in animated scenes out of nowhere and there are very few projects that would suit. It wouldn’t make sense to do a film about Napoleon and suddenly have a claymation scene but in Kneecap it just worked.
I embraced that madness but it wasn’t without challenges because when people see a script that is so out there in terms of its take, and particularly when I’m a filmmaker who’s never made a narrative feature before, there are people who want to put the brakes on and play it a bit safer. They asked if it was too much to handle, I’m handbrake turning this way, that way and it’s very easy to come off the road so I understand why there were voices who were trying to play a much more conservative game. Luckily for the film I’m a belligerent bastard! I ignored a lot of that and just ploughed on and I had an agreement with the band as to how we were going to do the film. This was how they wanted to do the film, this was how I wanted to do the film and it was about holding your nerve.
If anarchy is your tone, then the rule book is out and it means that suddenly you can break the fourth wall, you can drop in animated scenes out of nowhere and there are very few projects that would suit.
That’s one of the things with filmmaking, the more voices there are it’s challenging to manage those relationships upwards with the people that sign the cheques. I think that it’s very easy to get lost among different voices. There are 11 different funders in Kneecap and, love to all of them, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re all talking off the same hymn sheet. One funder really likes this scene, one funder really fucking hates this scene, where’s the middle? You can’t split the difference. Creatively that doesn’t work and you can’t do half of something to please both. In the end you have to pick a way and that is a challenge. I can imagine that filmmakers sometimes can get drowned out by trying to please everyone and your film becomes a bit wishy-washy in the middle and I’m glad that we managed to avoid that pitfall.
You’re certainly telling a bold and some may say provocative story. Especially amongst the nominees for BIFA’s The Douglas Hickox award this year, all of these UK independent films have strong voices and narratives and I for one am finding that so refreshing.
We’re having a difficult time with cinema where you’ve got your Marvel universe and those big franchises which are throwing, you know, chum to the sharks. It’s like they’re brain dead and then I think audiences are smarter than that. Audiences deserve better than they get served up. Then, on the other end of things, I enjoy indie arthouse cinema but I do find quite a lot of it is stuff that friends of mine struggle to engage with. They’re not in the industry and they’re not into film. They go, “Nothing fucking happened”. We live in an age where we’re so bombarded with content, whether we like it or not, the majority of people’s attention spans are less and less. I think that’s why we need to try and get to a middle ground where you’re trying to say interesting things in a bold way because the audience are ready for that. There is a mass audience for stuff that is bold and challenging and people can digest and enjoy that but perhaps there’s not a huge amount of that getting made. That’s not necessarily that those films aren’t being written but hopefully, maybe the success of films like Kneecap might encourage funders to get behind some of those more irreverent films.
All that was was a Henry Hoover with a probe lens down there which we stuck some hairs to, then turned it on and it sucked it up and it looked perfect.
Right, I want to talk about my favourite scene. That first big session between the boys in DJ Próvai’s garage where everything gets delightfully messy and chaotic.
You see a lot of films with drug use that feel very much the same so it was very much a conscious decision with me and Ryan Kernaghan, the DOP, to make sure that we’re not just filming generic portrayals of drug taking like the typical upping of the frame rate. You’ve seen a lot of the same techniques used to mimic the effects of drugs. For example, I’ve never seen the perspective of someone snorting a line from inside their nostril. We didn’t have time to do it during the shoot but afterwards, I managed to convince some of the FX guys to let us come out to their studio and all that was was a Henry Hoover with a probe lens down there which we stuck some hairs to, then turned it on and it sucked it up and it looked perfect.
That scene itself was basically the first night I met Kneecap. When I first pitched them on the film I was invited back to their house and it was absolute carnage for about 12 hours. It was kind of a test of whether: A) I could keep pace with them and B) I was a copper or a peeler. Actually for that scene we almost ran out of time. The day had gotten away from us and I had to say to Ryan we haven’t got enough time to do everything we want, sling it on your shoulder and I’m just going to start shouting out things for the lads to do. We put on some music and we had 15 minutes to shoot it so just go fucking ballistic. I was standing there on a chair shouting, get on top of him, take your shirt off. Right, now rub your nipples, snort a line off his face – it was absolute bedlam! The lads must have snorted so much sugar powder they’re all fucking diabetics now.
As funny, anarchic and wild as the film is, you are also looking at trauma and mental health, and the problems of those in these communities.
I think it’s a scene that was important for the film. The North of Ireland has a problem with prescription drugs and suicide. The rates are extraordinarily high for the suicide of young people and that whole idea of intergenerational trauma is something that isn’t spoken about a huge amount and something that is obviously very present in Belfast. But what I think is most important, is that sometimes it’s said that the generation that Kneecap are from has no right to talk about the Troubles because they didn’t live through it. What the fuck do you know about the troubles, right? You didn’t live through it. No one ever bombed you, right? And how dare you take that? But we want to make the point that no, they may not have lived through it, but the trauma of that still exists and has shaped who they are and their existence, and it’s not just in the North of Ireland. If you look around the world and conflicts that are happening now, that have happened in the last 10, 15, 20 years whatever conflict it is, it’s often forgotten that when that conflict ends the trauma doesn’t end. That trauma passes down from generation to generation and obviously nowhere more is that seen than the genocide that’s happening in Gaza.
We want to make the point that no, they may not have lived through it, but the trauma of that still exists and has shaped who they are and their existence.
I know you wanted a majority Irish speaking crew for the project?
It was important to us that the Irish language wasn’t just an affectation and doing it as a quirk but as a commitment to the Irish language as a thing. It’s important it wasn’t just on the screen but that it was behind the camera too. And so where possible we tried to get Irish language crew. I spent two years doing Irish lessons, I got my qualification and my whole plan was to shoot the film speaking Irish. But day one, in the madness and the chaos I suddenly realised I cannot do this in a second language! I’m going to think I’m getting a light moved and in fact, I’ve just ordered an elephant. Quite a few of the crew were Irish speakers and where possible that was embraced. But yeah, it was an important thing that the commitment to the language existed off the screen too.
The crews in the North and the South were some of the best crews I’ve ever worked with. There’s a freshness to work in Ireland. In any really established film industry, like in London, there’s a cynicism that kind of creeps in where everyone’s ‘been there and done that’ and it’s a little bit fatigued. Whereas Irish cinema is having a great cinematic moment, be that in terms of talent in front of and behind the camera, locations or whatever so you just feel that momentum. You feel that people are there thinking we can do the best possible work that can compete on a global stage and we’re keen and excited to do it. That energy just really helped with the shoot.
People really did give a huge amount. For example, we didn’t have time in the shoot itself to finish off the phone box scenes. I managed to get the lighting team and everyone back down off their own time on a Friday night two weeks after the shoot. They came down on their own volition and did it because they genuinely wanted to see the film done to the best of its ability. I have a huge amount of love, a huge amount of grá, as we’d say in Irish, for everyone who was involved in the film and the level of commitment they showed. It is the director who often gets all the glory in these things but film is a uniquely collaborative medium and it does not happen without a hundred plus people turning up every day and putting in their best effort to produce their best work in whatever little part of the film they’re doing.
And finally, I’d love to know what your best screening with the film has been and why?
That’s a difficult one – I would say it was Karlovy Vary. I’d been at Glastonbury for the weekend where the film was showing and I had to fly directly from there to the Czech Republic and I was dreading it. I was on my own, I was absolutely hanging after four days of being on it. I turned up for this Wednesday midday screening and it was this grand old theatre with 2,000 people rammed to the rafters, not a seat free in the house and a hugely engaged crowd. It was just a really emotional moment to find yourself in the Czech Republic getting a standing ovation from 2,000 people. It was a very special moment and the photo I’ve got of that I will cherish.
The journey with Kneecap has been hugely gratifying – travelling around the world with it for 11 months and finding people coming up to you all over the world with no connection to Ireland, saying the film really connected with them and has made them want to reconnect with their indigenous language and culture. To have made a piece of art that is having any impact upon people in that way is the whole point of it really and it’s very gratifying.
