Oxyana is like that strange feeling in the pit of your stomach, except it doesn’t go away. Five minutes into the film, it started growing. The feeling stretched on for hours, so I decided to do something about it. I could either sit on my couch seething with anger at my naivety and at doctors who had never taken the time to explicitly inform me of the dangers of Oxycontin, run to my medicine cabinet and dispose of my stash of the drug in disgust, or I could send an email. So I chose option three and wrote to the director of Oxyana in the hope of getting an interview and ultimately becoming more educated on the prescription drug epidemic.
Sean Dunne’s brilliant feature documentary debut premiered at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival to much acclaim, not just because the film juxtaposes beauty and devastation flawlessly, but because Dunne has witnessed the tragic consequences of drug use first-hand and knew how to tell the story of Oceana like no one else. Read my interview, watch the film and decide for yourself.
Best New Documentary Director – how does it feel being acknowledged on such a massive scale for your feature directorial debut?
It’s really a strange thing for me. I’m extremely flattered to be recognized in that way and the exposure was really great for the film and it ultimately will get more eyes on it, but I’ve always found the idea of giving awards for art a bit odd.
Our landscape is so over-saturated with visual and sensory stimuli, not much affects us anymore. The aesthetic of Oxyana was different; it had a lasting and profound effect on me and I’m sure, audiences in general. Did you anticipate this reaction to the film?
All we really knew was how it affected us. We spent a couple weeks scouting and hanging out in Wyoming County, West Virginia before shooting and witnessed some pretty intense stuff. It haunted me and profoundly changed my view of the world. I wanted the film to reflect that in the photography and the tone. I wanted the audience to feel what it was like for us, as outsiders, to stumble across this place. All that breathtaking natural beauty with such suffering just below the surface. We knew we couldn’t sugar coat this, we wouldn’t have been doing anyone any favors by doing that, for a film like this to work we had to keep it as raw as possible. That doesn’t always make for an easily digestible film, but that was the point, to challenge people, to make them think.
After American Juggalo, Man in Van and Stray Dawg, Oxyana is so left field. What compelled you to tackle such an issue like drug abuse?
My father struggled with prescription pill addiction when I was growing up. That eventually led him to street drugs and a life not too dissimilar from the people you see in Oxyana. It was fucking heart wrenching to see his downfall and forced me to grapple with a lot of complex feelings at a young age. He has since cleaned up and now lives a healthy and fulfilling life, but witnessing his battle with addiction always stuck with me. When I came across Oceana all those feelings kind of came rushing back. Drug abuse and addiction is something that is starting to permeate every pore of society. It doesn’t discriminate. Seeing this in such a concentration in Southern West Virginia was really alarming and hard to walk away from. We figured if we could tell this little story about this small town facing an epidemic that maybe it could spark a dialogue about why this is going on…everywhere.
Did you find the town quite receptive to the idea of the film or did you incur some resistance?
There is always going to be resistance when you approach a topic like this in a town that small. This is an extremely sensitive subject and we understood that going into it. What we quickly realized was that there was this huge divide between those doing the drugs and those who are not. For obvious reasons there is some tension there and I think the hardworking, sober segment didn’t want this acknowledged, even if it were for the good. But on the other hand there are many people who continue to thank us for making this film and getting this story out there. Any controversy that may have existed before the films release seems to have dwindled now that people can see what this film is really about.
You captured the eerie black cloud that seems to have settled over the town perfectly. Did filming in this environment and the graphic drug-use affect the crew while shooting?
Absolutely. In a way things are even worse than what we captured. We saw a lot of really weird shit. But I think what fucked us up the most is that we really liked all these people and we were literally witnessing them risk their lives on a daily basis. That’s what makes it so hard to shake, even now. Making this film changed everyone involved in ways I’m not sure I totally understand yet, but I saw it firsthand.
A lot of the young people interviewed attributed boredom as their reason for initially turning to drugs. Do you think small communities have some responsibility to provide young people with different forms entertainment to prevent this?
I think we can all relate with being a bored teenager who wants to tie one on. That’s something that will probably never go away and it’s not necessarily unique to Southern West Virginia. Boredom is a convenient excuse but not everyone that’s bored ends up hooked on Oxycontin. To blame the communities for a lack of entertainment is a slippery slope and may be an over simplification of a really complex issue. I think in the case of Oceana that isolation and education play bigger roles than lack of entertainment.
There are small towns like Oceana all around the world. What makes the youth of Oceana so much more susceptible to drugs?
The worst thing that Oceana has going for it is the staggering concentration of addicts. It’s hard to avoid them. Drugs have become so engrained in the culture that you see father and son, mother and daughter scoring pills together. When you’re surrounded by that you either become a part of it or use it as a reason to get far far away from there. To be clear though this is a problem that is going on in many small towns throughout the world, I’m not sure Oceana is any more susceptible than anywhere else. I see Oceana as a microcosm for the prescription opiate epidemic.
After watching Oxyana I began talking to people about Oxycontin and kept hearing names like ‘hillbilly heroin’ and ‘the gateway drug’ in reference to it. If this drug has such a reputation, why is it so over-prescribed or easily available?
Money.
Overdose leads to four deaths a month in Oceana – a town of 1500 people. That is an absolutely terrifying statistic. Do you think Oxyana will initiate a dialogue on changing legalisation around prescription medication in the United Sates?
I highly doubt that Oxyana will help get laws changed. All I can hope is that it gets people talking. Something has to change, I’m not sure what that is. This film doesn’t pretend to offer solutions because I’m not sure there is an easy solution. What I do know is that culturally we need to adjust our thinking about drugs and drug users. It’s obvious that the drug war in this country has been a massive failure and now we’re a bit dazed and confused and wondering what to do. Hopefully Oxyana can help shed the stigma that is associated with drug addiction and we can start talking about some solutions that don’t involve just blindly caging everyone who is struggling.
A prescription drug epidemic doesn’t exist in Australia, though eventually, everything occurring in the U.S. trickles down to us. Personally, no physician has ever informed me of the addictive properties of Oxycontin and I (like most people) don’t ask because I assume, if a doctor is prescribing it I don’t have to worry. At a grassroots level, how would you propose we raise awareness of the risks or dangers of prescription narcotics?
It’s hard. This is exactly how it got started here in the US, doctors not being clear about how quickly you become addicted, patients assuming it’s safe because their doctor prescribed them. That’s where it needs to start, in the doctor’s office. Ask questions.
How have things changed in Oceana since the release of the film?
There seems to be a new awarness and acceptance of the issues at hand. With that came a renewed commitment to solve this problem. It’s a step in the right direction. This film has got everyone talking. They might not all be saying nice things about the film, but they are acknowledging that this needs to be dealt with. It’s a step in the right direction, but too soon to gauge any real progress.
In the film, the people interviewed described the town as a once ‘great place to raise kids’. Did you think Oceania could ever return to what it once was?
It will be tough for them to return to what it once was. Same goes for all the small towns that are dealing with these issues. Coal is a dying industry and that’s what these towns in this part of the country rely on for economic stability. Even if the drug problem begins to subside you’re still looking at a place that has extremely high unemployment and has been economically devastated for years. It’s going to be tough but I like to believe that there is a lot of hope, West Virginians are a rare breed, you can never completely count them out.
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Emma Gaffy is one of top-notch figureheads of No Name Style and spends her time making sure people look pretty, shoots go fine and words come out correctly. You can read her other articles here.
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