By Paul Michael Angell (Director of ‘Medicine Man’)
The documentary feature film Medicine Man: The Stan Brock Story, which had its UK premiere in London’s West End on October 1st, is on a tour of the world in the course of its incredible meandering narrative (Preston, Guyana, Tennessee, coast-to-coast USA), but the tight band of filmmakers who brought it to life all reside in SE London. And it has its long-awaited South London premiere on Thursday 7th November in much loved local Whirled Cinema, hidden away in railway arches near Loughborough Junction (a stone’s throw from Brixton and Herne Hill).
My documentary feature film was 8 years in the making, and charts the incredible mission that Stan Brock undertook to provide decent free healthcare services all across America. It’s the tale of a British-born Amazonian cowboy who becomes a U.S. TV show star, has a mid-life crisis, takes a vow of poverty and then starts running mobile medical clinics in the United States. With no government support or corporate sponsorship, any hope of growth seems unlikely, but after 30 years, his organisation Remote Area Medical is bigger than ever.
I’m Scottish-born but have lived in SE London for 20 years. I discovered the Stan Brock Story after reading an article in The Sunday Times entitled ‘Saint Stan Brock: who are you?’. It inspired me to call Stan straight away and plead to make a biographical documentary film about his life. It was Sunday night and I remember he personally answered the phone. It was exhilarating. Only five minutes earlier, I had been reading about him in the newspaper. He was already TV-news famous, so there were other filmmakers in the mix, but he ultimately chose us, I suspect, because he was at a point in life when he wanted to reconnect with his Britishness; he was 76 and and I was 34. First, I ran a crowd funder to raise enough money to fly to Sacramento, CA to film him in April 2012.
But it was in my own backyard that I found the filmmaking talent needed to form a team capable of bringing such an epic story to the big screen. It says a lot about the developing hotbed of media talent that is accumulating in SE London that I didn’t have to leave the Camberwell, Brixton/Herne Hill, Peckham triangle to find the talent to get this film made. All our personnel were of exceptional quality and added massive value to a production that, given the strength of Stan’s story, already showed considerable promise. I like to think that the least you could say about our film, which is about the well-worn topic of the US healthcare system, is that it is watchable and well-crafted. That craft really comes from the exceptional skills of our production and post-production team. Each one of them matched subject matter passion with mastery of their craft, and were never more than a short walk (or cycle) away if we needed to talk. So the story of Stan Brock is vast, but the project in so many ways, is hyper-local
I first enlisted the help of Alex Zdan (Camberwell) to help with archive, social media and assembly editing – his role ultimately grew to become Associate Producer. And our very first meeting happened by chance, in Brockwell Lido! Ku Sharma (Brixton) came on board for social media, research and fundraising. That constituted our earliest core. Apart from one shoot with Stan in the UK, we had to make multiple trips to the US, and raise the cash to do so each time just to cover costs. Thankfully Iambic Dream Films came through with much needed financial support so we could push on, but personnel naturally changed as the production stretched from months to years. And the South London core expanded to keep pace – Vladimir Daniel (Camberwell) came on as film accountant and then Producer, Katie Bryer (West Dulwich) as Editor, Daniel Gadd (Herne Hill) for film score, Tim Beeston (Brockley) as Editor, Rob Szeliga (Brockley) as Sound Mixer and our end credits music was written and performed by popular Camberwell band John McClean and the Clan!
It’s a tribute to our South London essence that we screen at Whirled this week. I hope you can come along and help celebrate a truly local achievement in our own backyard. After our Q&A on the 7th, be sure to come and say hello!
https://www.facebook.com/MedicineManStanBrock