Words: Catherine Bray
Photography: Neil Parker
‘Thai brides’ are a sensitive issue: even more so when your father’s marrying a Thai woman 33 years his junior. Lorne Kramer, himself 25 decided to document this surprise partnership with touching results.
Mee And My Dad, the film that secured Lorne his 4Talent Award, is about as personal as it gets. But it also captures a truly international story. It’s a film about his family, specifically his father and his new wife: a Thai woman named Mee, of about Lorne’s age.
Having access to a story so sensitive and compelling is in many ways the documentary-maker’s dream. But when it’s this close to home, that must bring its own set of complications?
“It was hard in many ways,” Lorne admits. “Having your Dad tell you on camera that he feels like he’s ‘done with the role of being a Dad’ and just wants to be your mate was emotionally quite distressing. At the same time, being there with a camera gave me the power to ask questions I would never have been able to ask him if I wasn’t making a film.”
The original idea was to make a film about relations between Thailand and the West, but his tutor at UWE in Bristol helped him realise what the film really ought to be about. “He said, ‘What’s your USP? And I realised that my Dad and his relationship was the real story.”
Pioneering doc-makers like Broomfield and Theroux have successfully made themselves part of the story, but could turning the magnifying glass on your own father be seen as making career capital out of private issues?
“You have to be prepared to be challenged and criticized,” Lorne admits. “I’ve tried to be completely open about myself in the film, and hopefully people will see I’m trying to tell an honest story and react well.”
“Mee was upset with how she was portrayed, though,” he confesses. “I like her a lot, but she can be very difficult. She’s intelligent, but also manipulative, and we weren’t going to make a film that just showed everything in their relationship as positive.”
When we speak, Lorne is at Sheffield Doc/Fest, frantically handing out the thousands of business cards he’s at printed ahead of a screening of his film. From 1,500 submissions, just 140 are being shown, he tells me proudly – he’s nervous, but with justifiably high hopes.
“There are 1300 delegates here, and 150 buyers, so hopefully we might find someone who wants to distribute it, or even turn it into a different kind of film,” he asserts. “It’s 27 minutes long at the moment, but we shot 36 hours of footage, so it could be re-cut into a feature-length film.” More fool the buyers who pass over this early gem from a film-maker destined to go far.
