Agoraphobia resulting from a vicious unprovoked attack inspired director Ciaran Foy’s’ gripping horror film ‘Citadel’, a deeply personal project that also allowed him to exorcise his own personal demons on screen. At the age of 18, Mr Foy was beaten with a hammer by a gang of teenagers in South Dublin, rendering him housebound and terrified to go outside - until a letter of acceptance from the National Film School in Dun Laoghaire finally gave him the courage to step outside and face his fears.
From this traumatic experience came the seed of ‘Citadel’ - produced by Katie Holly of Blinder Films and Brian Coffey - in which the central character Tommy is also forced to confront debilitating agoraphobia following an assault on his pregnant wife by feral children living in a tower block, in an otherwise abandoned council estate.
The film also featured strongly at this year’s IFTA awards, winning Best Sound for Hugh Fox, Garret Farrell and Steve Fanagan; and earning nominations for Director of Photography Tim Fleming; and Mr Foy in the IFTA Rising Star award category.
Following its world premiere at the SXSW film festival in Texas last year, where it won the Midnighters Audience Award, ‘Citadel’ was also awarded best debut feature at the Galway Film Fleadh and several honours at international film festivals in Amsterdam, Paris, Sheffield, Toronto and South Korea.
As ‘Citadel’ finally arrives in Irish cinemas this Friday 21st June, distributed by Wildcard, IFTN spoke to Mr Foy about the cathartic experience of writing the screenplay, the process of making his first feature film, his cinematic influences and his next major project which will venture into the realm of sci-fi.
Mr Foy, can you tell us a bit about writing the screenplay for ‘Citadel’, in helping you to come to terms with the memories of your attack? The hardest part of the whole process was the writing of the script. My attack happened the summer before film school in 2000 and I wrote the first outline of ‘Citadel’ in 2006. Literally afterwards I made a short called ‘The Faeries of Blackheath Woods’. At that stage I felt far enough removed from my attack to be able to investigate it. As a writer you’ve really got to put your mind into the story and it became a case of diving back into that world every day. Because I was visiting scenarios and memories that I’d rather forget, it was a pretty difficult experience. But at the same time, I found myself echoing the arc of the main character. When I was in the midst of it, I honestly thought I was taking a step backwards but by the time I got to the end of it I honestly did feel empowered.
What was the shoot like on location in Glasgow in 2010? The actual shoot was chaotic because we had 23 days in the worst winter that Glasgow has on record. It was like the second Ice Age. We had kids in monster make-up and we had two twin baby boys who were playing Elsa. There were stunts and VFX, all the Do Not Do’s of a low-budget first feature. They usually recommend sticking to one location but ‘Citadel’ had 16 locations. We shot for a week before the snow first fell but we hadn’t anticipated snow in November. So we were losing locations on a daily basis. Glasgow is quite hilly so the roads became inaccessible, which meant we were sometimes looking for a new location the evening before shooting. In the midst of all this, for a first time feature director, my crutch or my placebo was my storyboard. I’d only shot something before with eight or nine people on set but this was a proper feature. I always thought if I got lost in the chaos or panic, as long as I shot my storyboard then the film would make some semblance of sense. But I had planned it to fit with locations found in pre-production and when they were suddenly gone, it was really unnerving. I had to throw the storyboard out the window. But in a strange way, it was actually the best thing that could have happened to me - even though I thought the sky was falling in at the time. I didn’t see the benefit of the snow until I was in the edit. On set, when I watched the rushes I realised I could actually do this. That was a tremendous confidence booster and really powered me on.
The manner in which the feral children are able to ‘see fear’ like a red mist is a great concept and Danny is a fascinating character in that he shares some of their abilities but is not one of them. He reminded me of the scene in ‘Pinocchio’ when the children start to transform into donkeys but Pinocchio escapes from the island in time to retain some of his humanity. It’s funny you should mention a Disney film. The idea of seeing fear and presenting yourself as a victim was something that came up when I was getting help for my agoraphobia. I thought of the very first draft of ‘Citadel’ as a really twisted dark re-telling of the story of ‘Dumbo’ because in that film you have this character who has no self-belief, which is the main theme of the movie, who is left on his own and meets a mentor who gives him a feather which is a placebo that makes him believe he has the ability to fly. In ‘Citadel’ that feather was Danny, and on his costume in the film you’ll see a little feather. Tommy too has to realise that the ability to overcome fear lies within him the whole time. So as we moved through the drafts, the first thing the producers put a line through was a scene where the TV channels were changing and I wanted a shot of Dumbo falling through the sky because there was no way we’d be able to afford permission from Disney. But there are a few Dumbo references in the movie, like the elephants on TV and Elsa’s toy elephant.
Is it true that the character of the priest, played by James Cosmo, was partly inspired by your father in the way he helped you when you were suffering from agoraphobia? The character was definitely a composite. I wouldn’t say he was based on only one person. My Dad is my biggest champion but he’s also a very down to earth, grounded guy. When I was housebound with agoraphobia, I didn’t have a word for my condition. He didn’t have a word for it either. It was just a case of ‘Ciarán is scared shitless to even look at the front door’. The shape of the door became something that penetrated my nightmares and became a really important shape in ‘Citadel’. It was a door, a tombstone and the tower block. There was a bit of my Dad in the James Cosmo character in the sense of him getting Tommy to pull himself together. The character of Marie might have shared some qualities with my mother in that she was a bit more altruistic and a bit more sensitive. But in a weird way, you need both.
I do remember the morning I finally forced myself out the door – and it sounds quite serendipitous to say this – I’d just received the letter saying I’d been accepted into Dun Laoghaire. And I had to register that morning. It was a case of either finding a way out to do what I’d always wanted to do or stay inside forever. So I forced myself outside at rush hour. I felt safer when there were lots of people around, like on a packed train. If I was in a location I didn’t know or on an empty street, I would have a panic attack. For me the movie is not social commentary. It’s an honest representation of the nightmarish way I viewed the world as a frightened 18 year old. I wanted to stay honest to that in making a movie about agoraphobia.
There is a pounding sense of dread throughout the film, which captures in a visceral sense what Tommy is going through. Were there any cinematic influences in terms of directors’ styles that had a bearing upon your directing choices in ‘Citadel’? I think in your subconscious is everyone who ever influenced you. But more specifically, my favourite horrors are from the ’70s and are nearly all about atmosphere, and the idea of something like a sponge getting under your skin so that you’re still thinking about it two weeks later - as opposed to a movie with cheap jumps that you forget about as soon as you leave the cinema. I’m thinking of Polanski’s ‘Repulsion’, ‘Don’t Look Now’, ‘The Exorcist’ and filmmakers in the ‘80s like Cronenberg with ‘The Brood’. My favourite horror is ‘Jacob’s Ladder’. It really leaves you paranoid. For something to do that is not easy. As I discovered with ‘Citadel’, it’s at least 50% visual and 50% sonic. If the sound proponent is not there, you’re not going to get that visceral experience. An underrated film I feel - which from a sonic point of view is terrifying - is ‘The Mothman Prophecies’. When I was writing ‘Citadel’ I would listen almost exclusively to the work of tomandandy, who did the music for ‘Mothman Prophecies’ and ‘Mean Creek’. And to get them to work on the film was an amazing experience.
I’m as big a fan of science fiction as I am of horror, but I always knew with a first feature you’re going to have a very small amount of money. I can think of several examples where a low budget actually benefitted a horror but fewer examples where a low budget has benefitted a sci-fi film. When you’re in the dark, your mind starts playing games with you. So you can actually achieve a lot by showing nothing.
Were the feral kids inspired at all by zombies, like the running kind from ‘28 Days Later’, or did you want them to be very much their own creation? I wanted to create something that was new and the first incarnation of them were like feral vampires who were stealing blood from people with their syringes. Back then it was a bit more like a B movie. I just wanted to have them as feral kids that could sense fear and leave viewers unsure how they’re staying alive. There are little breadcrumbs in the film, as possible explanations, like the fungus that’s growing in this tower block. You see them licking the walls and wonder if that what’s sustaining them. You can kind of formulate your own theory but I certainly didn’t want it to feel too much like your atypical zombie film.
There is a very powerful scene in the film when Tommy is walking down the tunnel towards the light, carrying Elsa and holding Danny’s hand. Was this a metaphor for own journey to recovery? Definitely. That particular scene for me was an arc from fear to no longer being afraid. But Tommy’s arc also involves not loving his daughter to loving her and finally being the father she needs. There is a power to holding in your hands something you have created but was given birth to by your own demons. You’re holding it and you’re the master of it. So that aspect was incredibly cathartic.
For your next project, are you sticking with the horror genre? I’m working on a science fiction film at the moment, with the producers of ‘Moon’. There’s going to be a big reveal at Toronto this year, so I am limited in what I can say. It’s a futuristic story about identity theft, set in New York. There’s a small horror element but it’s a sci-fi with a head on its shoulders - a bit like ‘Moon’ in that sense. It was a pre-existing script that I have since re-written.
Are you drawing upon any autobiographical elements this time round? Certainly not, but I believe that you can make anything personal. In any good story, there should be an entry point, so from that aspect there are parts of me in the scrip but nothing as extreme. I don’t think I have another phobia I can use, which is nice because writing this is fun and a welcome break whereas writing ‘Citadel’ was about exorcising demons.
‘Citadel’, distributed by Wildcard and produced by Blinder Films, is released in Irish cinemas this Friday 21st June, and the trailer is available to view below.
