GREAT DOCUMENTARIES
Three Identical Strangers, Channel 4
prior to that had been 45 minutes.” Having started his career in fiction, Wardle could see the possibilities for a feature-length treatment. “I like things that have a surplus of narrative. There’s so much going on and so many characters, it absolutely rewards a second
viewing.....It’s not just an extraordinary story, but has bigger depths: universal themes, such as nature versus nurture.”
Despite having a jaw-dropping story, it was hard to find funding. “I’ve got some brilliant rejection letters,” says Wardle. Broadcasters were worried that there was no ‘third act. ’ In the UK, the story was too American. That said, Channel 4 was interested enough to put in development money and so was Sundance, which gave it an endorsement. CNN then came on board.
“What we chose to do with this film was to restrict it to the POV of the brothers,” says Wardle. “It puts you in their shoes and gives you an emotional connection.” While there was excellent archive footage from the time of the brothers’ reunion, re-enactments were filmed for the period before, using an over-the- shoulder POV, alongside interviews with two of the brothers and key characters in the story. “Over the last decade Raw has perfected the retrospective documentary style, with the first person perspective taking you through the story as it happened.” The production team behind Three Identical
Strangers were from the world of TV documentary. “In the UK it’s split between those making cinema feature docs and TV docs and never the twain shall
meet,” says Wardle. Three Identical Strangers proved an exception. “For someone from a TV background, having your film released in theatres was crazy … It made one million dollars in the space of two days. I was used to overnight TV figures and this was a different metric - cold hard cash. And for me the greatest joy and privilege was being able to watch cinema audiences react in real time to my film: I could actually physically see people laughing, crying or being shocked.” Winning a Bulldog reflects the backing that
Wardle felt from the UK factual production community. “There’s a fantastic history and tradition of documentary film-making in the UK and we felt the support of that.”
Special Supplement Spring 2021
televisual.com
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