Kimberly Reyes listens in on continuing conversations & remembering memories in Conversations With My Dead Father.
Director Maurice O’Carroll’s Conversations With My Dead Father was a finalist at the Kerry Film Festival and also screened at the Cork International Film Festival last winter. The short made its way to this year’s Dublin International Film Festival with well-deserved buzz.
Ciarán Bermingham (Game of Thrones, The Young Offenders) wrote, co-produced (with Sinead O’Riordan), and stars in this smart short. Bermingham plays opposite Gary Murphy (Vikings) in the role of a son grappling with the loss of his father. Besides this father and son duo, whose names are never revealed, the only other person (or more specifically voice) featured in the film is that of a hilariously obnoxious casting agent who gives the son the vague direction to play “a father and not a dad” in an audition tape that he’s meant to send her.
The film effectively plays with perspective: writer as actor, fiction as fact, son as father, and memory as life. There’s affecting emotion around family and loss, but also levity and humor around everyday things like diets and fishing. There’s also a bit of subtext surrounding family strife and estrangement, all in a surprisingly easy to follow, fifteen-minute film that ultimately manages to explain the difference between a dad and a father.
