WHEN DIRECTOR SASHA King watched footage of Vicky Phelan emerging from the High Court in 2018, she was stopped in her tracks.
“I could not believe what I was hearing,” King said.
“I was very moved by her and I was very upset at what she was going through with our health service. She stayed in my mind.”
Soon afterwards, while the country reeled as the magnitude of the health services’ failures unfurled, King reached out to Vicky Phelan and met up with her in Dublin, where she asked the CervicalCheck campaigner if she’d like to join forces to make a film.
Nearly four years later, that documentary film – titled Vicky – is premiering at the Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival this week, covering her battle for justice and reform, access to treatments, and the stories of women who have passed away.
Vicky Phelan went for a routine smear test in 2011 and was told her results were normal, but was later diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2014. She later discovered that when her 2011 test was rechecked in an audit, it showed that she already had cancer at that point.
She was not the only one whose test result was misread. The HSE identified more than 221 women who were directly affected by failures in the CervicalCheck Screening Programme.
“I felt a huge responsibility to tell the story as it was unfolding. There was an awful lot to capture,” director Sasha King said in an interview with The Journal.
Literally, every week, something was happening and something new was revealed. The numbers of the women affected rose from an initial 15 to something like 106, to then 221. The group is called the 221+ now.
“And then there was the huge revelation that there were already 17 women who had passed away. That was shocking. This information was happening in real time as we were filming.
“I think most people were really shocked by the story and immediately drawn to Vicky,” King said.
“She was a whistleblower. She was asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement and she said no because she had an idea, an inkling, that there were more women involved.
“That to me was: okay, stop, we all need to know what’s going on here and we need to know fast. So I was delighted to meet her and I was delighted to start doing this project together.”
The moving documentary begins with Vicky’s personal health and legal battles before zooming outwards to look at the wider political scandal – and the lives that were affected.
It includes powerful testimony from women living with cervical cancer and families of women who have died to figures like Dr Gabriel Scally, who led an inquiry into the Cervical Check Screening Programme, and former President of Ireland Mary Robinson.
In its opening shots, the film shares images of Vicky’s smear test slide from 2011, and then introduces Vicky on a beach near her family’s holiday home.
“Once I got to know Vicky, I envisioned a cinematic film, a cinematic feature documentary on her. It was not your typical bio or a news programme of any kind,” King said.
I wanted to capture the extraordinary elements that make up Vicky as a person, the person that we’re all drawn to. She literally is a heroine, she will go down in history as someone who fought for us.
King felt it was “very important to go back to these images that I had from the slides”.
“I kept looking at these images going, first of all, you wouldn’t know what they were initially off the bat. They’re quite abstract at a first glance, quite unusual, more like a kind of a painting – I suppose abstract is the word.
“And then when you start to realise what they are, it’s a very powerful image and I thought it was very important to use them in a sensitive way at the beginning,” she said.
“With the sea, the cinematic sea imagery with Vicky, that’s her place where she goes to to find her peace of mind.
Why she went here was to get away from what was happening in the media and in the news – because she was in such demand in that period of time as well, she was an activist, she was constantly being asked for interviews, if something happened to somebody else she was called upon and she was also fighting to stay alive herself.
“So when she went down to her holiday home and she went to the sea, it was very important to capture that and show that, because that was her taking time out for herself to put everything into perspective.”
Behind the scenes, King was joined by her husband Bill Snodgrass who co-produced the documentary with her, with the two doing “pretty much everything” from filming and producing to editing and post-production. “It’s really been a journey with Bill.”
The film features three original songs, one of which was written by King’s husband and sung by her children Tadgh and Tristian. “These songs were written for the film, for Vicky,” King said.
“There’s the title track that Bill wrote called This Fight Was For You. It’s played at the beginning with no vocals and then at the very last part of the film it’s with vocals. My two sons sing that.”
Áine Morgan, a singer from Galway with cervical cancer who campaigned for access to treatments, wrote a song called I’m Still Here that plays during a scene where then-Taoiseach Leo Varadkar issues an apology in the Dáil.
And musician Bressie wrote a third original song for the film that plays during its end titles.
“None of these songs have been released yet so they’re all quite unique, strong tributes to Vicky and the film. I’m just very honoured to be able to kind of include these powerful songs in it,” King said.
The director hopes that the film will have international reach and raise important awareness about women’s healthcare.
“We believe that this is a global story because it’s a story about women’s health. We think it’s going to have a great life outside of Ireland.”
While the documentary was being made, several campaigners died from cervical cancer in Ireland, including Emma Mic Mhathúna, Julie O’Reilly and Ruth Morrissey.
“We can never forget that. If this does anything, I want it to document at least what happened with Vicky and with these other women in this period of time, because it’s just too important,” King said.
This is our history. It’s not just Irish women. Her message reaches globally to all women – take care of your health, trust in yourself, question everything.
“If you believe there’s something else going on, investigate and get a second opinion. If it wasn’t for Vicky delving into her file that day and realising something was askew, we wouldn’t have known about this.”
The Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival runs from 23 February to 6 March – visit diff.ie to check out the festival programme and buy your tickets.
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