Twenty years ago, a man named Rick Canty lost his mother and was soon after evicted from their home in Barry, Wales, due to bankruptcy charges he vehemently issued. claimed they were fraudulent. In protest against the forced move, he climbed onto the roof of the house and settled into a new routine on the roof, not just for a few days or weeks, but for more than two years. Almost overnight he became a local legend, inspiring a unique sense of neighborly support that people in Barry still talk about.
Welsh filmmaker Isaac Atkin-Maynewho grew up in Barry and heard a lot about Canty over the years, was inspired to tell a story about community, camaraderie and the extraordinary things ordinary people are capable of in the face of adversity.
Atkin-Mayne describes his short documentary: “Rik on the roof,” as a look into Canty’s “determined and slightly crazy protest, but it’s also about a search for a kind of community that can feel rare these days.” He particularly responded to the idea of ”strangers who are willing to support you in your struggle and make it their own, and remember them twenty years later as the most meaningful of their lives.”
The collaborative project includes archival footage shot by a local named Steven Toozer, who initially planned to make a short film about Canty’s protest. Along with additional footage from news sources and other individuals, Atkin-Mayne adds an extra dimension by including interviews with those who knew Canty personally. “This is a homegrown film about collective memory, portraying Rick’s story through the voices of those closest to him, as a kind of visualized oral history,” says Atkin-Mayne.
Released amid the ongoing cost of living crisis in Britain, ‘Rick on the Roof’ delves into a story about how a quiet neighborhood rallied around an individual faced with a truly unique set of circumstances. Neighbors sent him food and essential supplies via a bucket-and-pulley system, and although the house was sold at auction in the summer of 2007, he remained on the roof until he was forced to leave in late 2008.
“Barry, like much of Britain, is facing sharply rising costs of living that are quietly affecting people in many different ways,” says Atkin-Mayne. “Our goal in remembering Rick’s story is to renew a sense of togetherness despite hardship and to remind ourselves that we are never alone.”
