Get Into Film
In this podcast, Gemma Creagh met up with Gerard Mannix Flynn, in The Westbury Hotel in Dublin to talk about his film – co-directed with Maedhbh McMahon & Lotta Petronella – Land Without God, which examines the legacy of institutional abuse by the Irish Church and State over the last century.
In this eerie episode of the Reel Horror Show, special ghoulish guest Stephen “Screaming ” Shields [writer, The Hole in the Ground] joins regular monstrous mutant hosts Conor “McMayhem” McMahon, Ali “Horror” Doyle and Conor “Howling” Dowling to open a coffin of consternation and carve up the corpse within.
Uv-voov shredded thistle organ… welcome.
In this episode, the ghastly gang talk about
In this podcast, Gemma Creagh chats to Shelly Love, the director of A Bump Along the Way which introduces us to Pamela, a boozy 44-year-old single mother whose teenage daughter Allegra disapproves of her care-free lifestyle. Their fragile relationship is further tested when Pamela becomes pregnant after a one-night stand.
Shelly discusses
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In this podcast, Paul Farren talks to Tom Burke, the director of Losing Alaska, which tells the story of a small community in Alaska called Newtok who are dealing with a slow-moving disaster. The 375 inhabitants of Newtok feel the winter storms grow more fierce each year and steal their coastline, they watch their homes disappear into rolling seas as the melting permafrost erodes the edges of their town. The plan is to abandon the town and start again 9 miles up the river on higher, more solid ground. The community is divided between those determined to stay, and those equally determined to move. They are fighting the weather, the indifference of state agencies and now, finally, each other.
As well as discussing the intricacies of the ways of life of the people of Newtok and the challenges they face, Tom talks about how the project came to be, telling a big story through the prism of a small situation, people trying to survive in a changing world, the nature of documentary, telling people’s stories, not taking sides, the joy of seagull eggs, screening the film in Newtok, the practicalities of filmmaking in such an environment, cameras and lenses, discovering a frozen-tripod-head panning technique, working with Gerry Horan on the soundtrack, creating a cinematic documentary and the onset of frostbite.
Losing Alaska is released in cinemas 4th October 2019.
Tom Burke will participate in a post-screening Q&A at the IFI on Thursday, 3rd October & the Light House cinema on Sunday, 6th October.
L-R Paul Webster, Peter Kilmartin, Nodlag Houlihan
Ahead of the 2019 IFI Documentary Festival (25-29 September) Gemma Creagh talks to three filmmakers whose films feature in the Shorts Programme, which takes place on the 28th September. Nodlag Houlihan (Reality Baby ), Paul Webster (The Vasectomy Doctor ) and Peter Kilmartin (Sunny Side Up) join Gemma to talk about their films and what it takes to put together a documentary.
Reality Baby (Nodlag Houlihan)
A group of friends are given lifelike baby dolls to care for over twenty four hours, but how will they rise to the challenges of teenage motherhood?
The Vasectomy Doctor (Paul Webster)
Dr Andrew Rynne was the first doctor to perform vasectomies in Ireland, estimating that he has performed over 35,000. Persevering in the face of opposition from the Church and State in Ireland during the 1970s and 1980s, Dr Rynne continued to challenge the laws governing sexuality, eventually forcing the government to change policy.
Sunny Side Up (Peter Kilmartin)
Peter Pringle and Sunny Jacobs both served years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit. After being exonerated, what are the chances they both met and fell in love?
The 2019 IFI Documentary Festival Shorts Programme takes place on Saturday, 28th September 2019 at 13.30
Filmmakers’ Bios
Nodlag Houlihan is an Irish film director, producer and writer. Her short documentary Reality Baby premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and won Best Documentary at the Fastnet Film Festival 2019. She is the writer and producer of the RTE series My Trans Life (2018), nominated for the prestigious Prix Europa and the MIPCOM Diversity Award. She produced the feature documentary Broken Song and a number of Screen Ireland funded short films which have played at festivals around the world and won many prizes. Nodlag also teaches filmmaking at the School of Creative Arts, Trinity College Dublin and has facilitated numerous film projects for young people. She is currently working on The Francis St Photographer, an hour-long documentary for RTE about the work of Dublin photographer John Walsh.
Paul Webster is an award-winning producer, writer and director. He is a graduate of Galway Mayo Institute of Technology and the MA program in Production and Direction at the John Huston School of Film and Media in Galway. He went on to work in production for Element Pictures and later as a script editor on Fair City, he is now a regular writer on the popular soap. Paul was the winner of the Físín Pitching Award at the Dingle International Film Festival 2012 from which his film Stuama received its funding. He directed the drama which won Best Irish Film at The Cork Underground Film Festival 2013. Let Those Blues In, Paul’s documentary about Irish Blues musician, Paddy Smith, was the winner of Best Short Documentary in association with RTE at The Sky Road Film Festival, Clifden, Co. Galway. He was one of the filmmakers chosen by Science Foundation Ireland and The Galway Film Centre as part of their Science On Screen documentary scheme. Written and directed by Paul, Mending Legends goes behind the scenes of Irish sport to explore the unseen drama caused by injuries for our top athletes. It screened on Tg4 in Autumn 2017 and was the third most-watched independent production for that year. Paul co-directed Borderland, a 26-minute documentary exploring the refugee crisis along Europe’s Borders. Under the 2018 Real Shorts scheme, Paul received €20,000 from the Irish Film Board for his docu-drama The Vasectomy Doctor, produced by Carbonated Comet Productions. The film premiered at the Cork Film Festival in November 2018 and went on to win the Audience Award for Best Short at the Dingle International Film Festival 2019, Best Short Film at The Still Voices Short Film Festival and Best Short Documentary at The Louth Film Festival.
Peter Kilmartin is from the Wild Wild West of county Roscommon in Ireland and is a recent graduate from the National Film School of Ireland . He has an avid interest in documentary filmmaking, alongside this he also runs his own successful award winning production company, Spicy Dog Media. This year he directed his debut short The Sunny Side Up, a short documentary about two exonerated prisoners finding love, hope and acceptance in each other.
www.facebook.com/spicydogmedia
L-R Emma Fagan, Laura O’Shea, Gemma Creagh, Mia Mullarky
In this podcast Gemma Creagh is joined by Emma Fagan, programme manager of The Bleeding Pig Film Festival (9-11 September) and filmmakers Mia Mullarky (Mother & Baby) and Laura O’Shea (Hold the Line), whose films are screening at the festival.
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Mother & Baby (Mia Mullarky)
Mother & Baby explores the memories of Mother & Baby Home survivors who were sold or fostered out by the Irish church and state if their mothers conceived them out of wedlock.
Mia Mullarkey is a film director based in Dublin, Ireland. She
directed several successful shorts, receiving 35 awards globally, and screening at major international short film festivals such as Palm Springs, Aesthetica, São Paulo, Valladolid, Tehran and Helsinki. In 2018 Mia received the Discovery Award at Dublin International Film Festival for her body of work, and was made the 2018/2019 Filmmaker-in-Residence with Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival and The Digital Hub.
http://motherandbabyfilm.com
http://miamullarkey.com
http://ishkafilms.com/
Hold the Line (Laura O’Shea)
Em works in a call centre. She faces a day that’s more difficult than the usual ‘customer care queries’ and is on the brink. That’s until: she picks up the phone to Patsy.
Laura O’Shea is an award winning actor/writer/filmmaker from Limerick City. Her filmmaking-debut was a Short Film titled Hold the Line. This was the Winner of the ‘Best Short Film’ award at the 2019 Belfast Film Festival and it also won the ‘Audience Award’ at the 2019 Chicago Irish Film Festival. Laura won the award for ‘Best Actress’ at the 2018 Richard Harris International Film Festival for her performance in Hold the Line and also received a Special Mention at IndieCork 2018 for ‘Best Emerging Irish Female Director’. In the theatre world, her play Knowing Nathan that she co-wrote as well as acted in was the Winner of the ‘Judge’s Choice Award’ at the 2018 Galway Fringe Festival. Laura comes from a musical background and holds an MA in Music Technology.
Mother & Baby and Hold the Line screen as part of a selection of short films all written/and or directed by women on Tuesday, 10th September: 7.30pm to 9pm – followed by a Q&A.
The 2019 Bleeding Pig Film Festival takes place 9-11 September in Keelings of Donabate, Co. Dublin.
The full programme is here.
From left to right Katie McNeice, Tom Speers, Maya Derrington, Gemma Creagh and Roisín Geraghty
In this podcast, we welcome three filmmakers whose works are screening at this year’s GAZE International LGBT Film Festival (1 – 5 August). Maya Derrington, Katie McNeice and Tom Speers join Gemma Creagh to talk about their films and filmmaking.
Plus festival director Roisín Geraghty pops in to give us a quick look at this year’s programme.
Frida Think (Maya Derrington)
A woman walks into a party dressed as Frida Kahlo, only to find that her version of unique has mass appeal.
In Orbit (Katie McNeice)
A hypnotic and beautiful love story between two women that crosses both time and space.
Boy Saint (Tom Speers)
A sumptuous short film of friendship and adoration between boys, based on a poem by Peter LaBerge.
The GAZE International LGBT Film Festival runs from 1 – 5 August 2019.
The Irish Shorts programme screens at 6:30pm at the Light House cinema on Sunday, 4th August.
Full programme & tickets here.
Film Ireland Podcasts
Set in modern-day Los Angeles, Papi Chulo tells of a down-on-his-luck weatherman (Matt Bomer) who is shaken by the end of a relationship. He has an on-air meltdown, prompting concerned bosses to persuade him to take some time out. To fill his days, he employs a Latino migrant worker (Alejandro Patiño) to paint his home but also to keep him company. Despite their cultural, age and language differences, they connect.
Paul Farren sat down with writer/director John Butler to talk about creating his comedy/drama, the themes of empathy and unlikely friendship, the talents of Matt Bomer and Alejandro Patiño and working with DOP Cathal Watters and composer John McPhillips.
Papi Chulo is in cinemas from 7th June 2019