Pavee Lackeen

British photographer Perry Ogden spent several years snapping traveller-kids in Dublin’s Smithfield Market before deciding to translate the project into a film, which turns out to be an intimate documentary-style portrait of the Irish traveller community shot entirely on mini-DV. An encounter during his extensive research with Winnie Maughan, a gabby ten-year-old gave Ogden the inspiration and focus that he needed. He cast Winnie and several members of her immediate family – including mum Rose – as close versions of themselves (they keep their names) and wrote a script that draws on the Maughans’ experiences of living in a trailer on the edge of Dublin and encountering the sharp end of Irish bureaucracy.

Although ‘Pavee Lackeen’ suggests a culture in crisis, there’s nothing didactic or awkwardly anthropological about Ogden’s tender film. While he hints at problems faced by the traveller community, from decent housing to suitable education, his focus is Winnie. It’s her whom Ogden follows as she wanders about the local shops or applies make-up before a night out. He gives the Maughans much room for manoeuvre and allows them to riff freely on his script. As such, their dialogue is fresh and credible, and there’s a pleasing sense of vérité (Ogden cites as influences Alan Clarke and the Dardennes). There’s no real story as such, rather a series of loosely connected events that together offer a window on a way of life and Ogden’s admirable sympathy as a director.