I first heard about Marcus Fair and his exciting recovery community initiative Eternal Media, based in in Wrexham, North Wales, from my colleague Wulf Livingston. I was stimulated and excited listening to Marcus and Wulf as I edited the film of their Recovery Voices conversation. And I was absolutely amazed that Marcus had survived a 25-year heroin and crack cocaine addiction. He also experienced extended periods of homelessness and time in Her Majesty’s Prisons (HMPs). I was touched by Marcus’s words, ‘I wasn’t aware you could change.’
I was fascinated by Marcus’s transition from heroin addict to filmmaker. I loved his film Flipped It!, which was about addiction and how people turn it around and find recovery. He used both the police and people who had been in trouble with the police in making the film. I am so impressed by what has been achieved by Eternal Media, both in terms of helping large numbers of people in their recovery journey from addiction and/or offending behaviour, and by the high quality of the film projects that the team has made. And the fact that Marcus has survived the constant challenge of finding funding to do their work.
I wanted to do a follow-up to Wulf’s interview with Marcus, which I did early this year. My apologies for the long delay in editing the film and writing the summaries. I was later thrilled to have an opportunity to visit Marcus and Lucke Gabriel, Head of Post Production at Eternal Media, in The Bunker on the outskirts of Wrexham. I was like a kid in the cookie jar. I was so impressed by what I saw and heard.
I edited ten films totalling over 72 minutes from my conversation Marcus. You can find the links and summaries to these films by clicking the heading below. Please note that the words in this blog post are those from the introduction to Marcus’s People page.