Following the director, Beryl Richards's adopted son Nathan/Joe’s journey from a one-year-old to adulthood, told from the viewpoints of parent and child.
Joe wants to make this film so people ‘get’ him, know what it means to be neurodivergent, and what he has been able to achieve despite many challenges. Beryl shows the evolution of a family created from scratch that’s had to keep adapting. The challenge and recalibration of being a parent and a lifetime carer.
The core of the story is told through 28 years of home movie footage- sparky, warm and funny as Nathan/Joe develops into the man he is today. Alongside, a growing boy is shown, much misunderstood and almost destroyed by the prejudice and ignorance surrounding neurodivergence. The family therapy received along the way offers some support, but also reveals how the family dynamic was influenced by Beryl’s own experience of childhood neglect.
Beryl first saw 6-month-old Nathan on a VHS tape. She and husband Dave responded with a video welcoming him to their home. For the past 28 years Beryl has recorded “our feelings, our joy and our pain" so that Nathan could better understand his story later in life.
10 years ago, while working for the BBC as a documentary maker, I was diagnosed with a rare and degenerative illness that started slowly paralysing my arms and legs. At its worst, the illness leaves patients fully paralysed, unable to communicate, while their brains remain completely unaffected – they are Locked-In. Before the illness stops me being able to hold a camera, I want to make a film about the illness I have by meeting people as they recover from being Locked-In, learning about the disease from people who’ve had it in its most extreme form and having the chance to see my own future living with the illness.
Lollipop (the sweet sounding name of a mastectomy scar) explores the creator’s surreal odyssey of tackling breast cancer. Twice. Her avatar, Eva, slips into youthful memories of seaside attractions and sunshine, which morph into something dark and corporeal as she juggles family life and illness.
The film is in development with the BFI and NI Screen.
