Gloria Lauri-Lucente and Fabrizio Foni from the University of Malta MA in Film Studies programme interview CHRIS NUNN on the documentary showing the legendary making of the 1973 British cult film The Wicker Man.

Exactly one week after its world premiere at the Fantaspoa Film Festival in Porto Alegre, Children of the Wicker Man will be screened on May 5 at 6.30pm at the Valletta Campus Theatre, University of Malta, Valletta.

Thanks to unpublished material which unexpectedly resurfaced in 2021, this enthralling documentary sheds new light on the much-troubled yet legendary making of the 1973 British cult film The Wicker Man, directed by Robin Hardy.

In addition to offering fresh insights into the film, which has been described as “the Citizen Kane of horror movies”, Children of the Wicker Man presents an emotional journey undertaken by half-brothers Justin and Dominic Hardy, sons of Robin Hardy.

Film still showing Justin and Dominic Hardy sifting through unpublished documents of their father.

Together, they conceived and directed the documentary alongside Chris Nunn, Assistant Professor of Film Studies at the University of Birmingham. Both Justin and Dominic, respectively a professional filmmaker and an art history professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal, share a strong but complex bond with their late father.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with the three directors and the producer Alison Palmer.

GLL, FF: What are the reasons that drove you to make this documentary?

CN: We initially wanted to produce a critical reappraisal of The Wicker Man as it turned 50. And we felt well placed to do this as academics, to produce a film grounded in research.

But the discovery of a new archive of documents from Robin Hardy’s study changed the direction of our film, which ended up being much more about him, and his two sons trying to understand his contribution to this cult classic.

More than that though, we have produced a film that is also a meditation on independent filmmaking, and what it means to be a father.

In a film that was about two sons following in their father’s footsteps, it felt right to make one last pilgrimage

GLL, FF: What are the most innovative aspects of Children of the Wicker Man?

CN: We’ve worked very hard to not get bogged down in the material we have, and we therefore feel the documentary moves quite fast. Where we do linger, it is usually on emotional beats for the brothers which, I might add, involves a stunning clifftop shamanic invocation shot here in Malta.

The poster of the documentary.

One other innovative aspect is the playful nature of some of the sequences in our documentary, where we had the brothers recreate scenes from the original Wicker Man and cut them together. This was great fun, and an important homage to the original film.

GLL, FF: Why, among all the possible locations related to The Wicker Man, did you decide to shoot the concluding part in Malta?

CN: It seemed to us that the last significant screening of The Wicker Man that Robin Hardy attended was the one that you organised at the University of Malta, in 2016. He died very shortly after that.

So we had the story told in an interview by his last wife Vicky, and then I met the two of you who were responsible for hosting him. It seemed that the event had been significant for all involved, and caused emotional ripples that were still felt when being asked about it eight years later.

Naturally, in a film that was about two sons following in their father’s footsteps, it felt right to make one last pilgrimage.

The public is invited to the screening on May 5 which is being organised by the MA in Film Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Malta. Admission is free. Seats will be available on a first-come first-served basis.