Saving the Titanic picked up three awards at the British Independent Film Festival (6 – 7 May, London) winning the Best Director award for Maurice Sweeney, Best Supporting Actor for Ciaran McMenamin, and Best Feature Film for producer Stephen Rooke.
Saving the Titanic is the untold story of the self sacrifice and dignity of the ship’s engineers,stokers and firemen in the face of impending death.
Seeking to answer the question of what happened in the engine and boiler rooms after the collision, Producer Stephen Rooke’s and Director Maurice Sweeney’s film Saving the Titanic tells the story of the disaster from below deck, with the action taking place between the time the crew embark the Titanic at Southampton and the eventual sinking of the ship. Narrated by leading Irish actor Liam Cunningham and based upon eye-witness accounts, this is the remarkable story of nine central characters from the engineering crew as they work among the huge, coal-fired furnaces heating the boilers and massive dynamos whirring to satisfy the ship’s demand for electricity. These nine men – among them leading fireman Frederick Barrett, chief engineer Joseph Bell, Sligo man electrician Alfred Middleton, assistant electrician William Kelly from Dublin and 18-year-old electrical engineer Albert Ervine from Belfast – are the heroes of this epic film. Their personal stories of bravery are recounted as the men fought courageously to hold back the power of the sea and keep the power systems running, even when they learned that all was lost. Most of these men died but their actions saved many lives.
