Director's Statement by Marc Isaacs

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The Filmmaker’s House was born out of a growing frustration with the state of the British Documentary film industry and a personal determination to retain  independence of mind in my filmmaking. Over the last few years, successful funding for documentary films has been largely determined by how much the filmmaker is willing to deliver the film that the funders want them to make. So we have numerous films about crime and dead pop stars. What has been lost, in my view, is a willingness on the part of funders to back films with a distinct signature -  films that take formal and thematic risks. Filmmaking has always been a process of discovery for me and not a commercial endeavour to serve up the predictable old formulas. When I eventually decided to take the plunge and create a film based in my own home, I invented the film as I went along with the help of a few friends and together we discovered a way of working that was free from the constraints of the 'industry'. I wanted to walk the thin line between documentary and fiction without relying on my own tried and tested formulas and I was determined to dig deep into a new method and to be inspired by the work of those filmmakers who have followed a similar impulse. I have enjoyed the process immensely, precisely because I wasn’t painting by numbers. I have intentionally left many questions raised in the film unanswered in the hope that the viewing experience provokes further thought.