Three questions to… Andy and Ryan Tohill, directors of Insulin

INSULIN-150

 
Andy and Ryan Tohill are the directors of Insulin, one of the live action short films in competition at Irish Film Festa 2016.

Insulin‘s screenplay is written by Stephen Fingleton, the director and screenwriter of post-apocalyptic-drama feature film The Survivalist which is also going to screen at Irish Film Festa. Insulin, The Survivalist and another short film, Awaydays by Michael Lennox (Boogaloo & Graham), are all set in the same dark, violent dystopian world.

Insulin tells the story of a man, holed up in a run down pharmacy, helping his diabetic wife to survive on scarce supplies of insulin, and trading medicine for food from the outside world. The film stars Barry Ward (Jimmy’s Hall), Tara Lynne O’Neill, Ciaran Flynn and Sophie Harkness.

 

Insulin is part of a bigger project which includes The Survivalist and Awaydays: can you tell us something more about this fictional world created by Stephen Fingleton?

Stephen Fingleton’s Survivalist world is not just about the collapse of society but natures’ power to regain control over the decaying, man made world.

In our film Insulin we wanted to approach his Survivalist vision from another perspective, to remove nature from the film. Instead, telling a story in a very different environment; in an urban, oppressive interior. The bleakness of the outside world is never seen and the characters cling on to a doomed hope of survival from the inside of their depleted pharmacy.

 

How did you work with the actors on this emotionally challenging story?

The film was shot in two days so we didn’t have a lot of rehearsal time, but I think Stephen’s script was brilliantly bleak and simple and that the stakes for each character jumped off the page. All the actors knew the film is about survival at any cost, so it was a matter of getting them into that head space. The character Trader remained for the majority of the shoot on the other side of the door, so he was always removed from the other actors in that sense. That distance and lack of familiarity was important for their performances, as the film hinges on whether to trust a stranger or not.

 

Where was the film shot?

There was a lot of set design needed to convince the audience of a decaying society, that all had to be obvious from the interior of one or two rooms, so we were really looking for four walls an a ceiling to build a set. It had to be somewhere we could do a lot of design without fear of destroying a place, so gaining access to a pharmacy and trashing it was out. Then we thought of an old bakery which had been vacant for a decade or so across the street from our family home in Belfast, and that’s were we ended up shooting. There was a strange nostalgia filming in our own childhood neighbourhood, the same place were we grew up making films with our friends.

Three questions to… Paul McGuigan, director of Girona

girona_irishfilmfesta

 
Paul McGuigan is the director of Girona, one of the live action short films in competition at Irish Film Festa 2016.

Girona stars Scottish actor John Hannah (Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Mummy) and Northern Irish actress Séainín Brennan (The Fall).

On a long stormy night an encounter with a dark mysterious woman (Brennan) in a strange hotel causes a lonely man (Hannah) to confront his past…

 

Where was the film shot?

The film was shot in a boutique hotel in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter, a maze of streets and side streets with Saint Anne’s Cathedral at its heart. We shot over St. Patrick’s Day when we knew the streets would be thronged with revellers, enjoying the festivities: the hotel then had to become other-worldly, ethereal, a place-apart. The location for the hotel was quite difficult to find as it needed to have a suite with an inter connecting door to another bedroom. It also needed to have a certain ambience that suited the mise en scéne.

 

How did you cast John Hannah to play Hart?

We never thought we could attract an actor of the calibre of John Hannah to our film, after all it was a short! When myself and the producer, Eamonn Devlin, were kicking around some names, we played a game of “in an ideal world who would we like to play Hart“, and John Hannah was on both of our lists. Of course we dismissed it as pie in the sky.

Then we spoke to the agent of another actor we were interested in and she also happened to be the agent for John – she asked if she could show the script to him. The next day I got a call from John saying that he loved the script and the character and really wanted to play the role. He came over to Belfast for four days and was amazing, generous, erudite and most importantly, great craic.

 

As a director, your attention is very focused on details: how did you work on the visual aspect of the story?

The film is quite claustrophobic, because it takes place in a hotel room: moving the camera becomes a luxury, so the fine details must reveal character and reveal the story. Hart values substance, his father’s battered Rolex sits proudly on his wrist, his silver razor catches the light as he shaves, sending shards of light across the darkness of the bathroom. The sound of a sharp blade harvesting stubble cuts through the silence.

The film is symmetrical, and like Newton’s third law, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction: Sophie puts on her make-up, Hart shaves in the mirror; Sophie puts on her stockings, Hart fixes his braces. Karma is the great law of cause and effect, of action and reaction, which directly influences their very existence.

The framing reflects symmetry and balance, the yin and yang. Longish takes, giving the actors space to explore their characters, pervade. The camera moves rather than cuts, close-ups are for emphasis. Sometimes a shadow appears before its owner follows. Characters move through pools of light, reflecting their lives, inhabiting dark spaces synonymous with their characters.

I looked at classic films that inhabit small spaces, the Overlook Hotel in The Shining, Alain Resnais’ Last Year in Marienbad, and Wes Anderson’s Hotel Chevalier. The characters become intertwined with the location – this was important to our film, one couldn’t exist without the other.

 

Three questions to… Damien O’Donnell, director of How Was Your Day?

how_was_your_day_IFF_2016

 
How Was Your Day?, directed by Damien O’Donnell and adapted from a short story by Nollaig Rowan, is one one of the short films in competition at Irish Film Festa 2016.

Eileen Walsh (Peter Mullan’s The Magdalene Sisters) plays a woman who is excited about the approaching birth of her first child, but things won’t be what she expects.

How Was Your Day?, funded by the Irish Film Board under the Signatures scheme, won as best Irish short at IndieCork and just got an IFTA (Irish Film and Television Academy) Awards nomination.

 

The film is based on a short story by Nollaig Rowan: can you tell us something about the adaptation?

I heard Nollaig’s short story on the radio and it stopped me in my tracks. I was mesmerised by the story and by its theme – which questions the presumption of maternal love.

I wrote about five or six drafts of the screenplay over a period of about two years and during that time we spoke to a lot of professionals and women who find themselves in the same situation as the mother in this film. A lot of the details in the film came as a result of this research and we had to make other changes from the original story for practical purposes, but overall the film is very faithful to the theme and intention of Nollaig’s original story.

 

Eileen Walsh is courageous as usual in the short. Did you give her some space for improvisation for this role?

Eileen and I spoke a lot about the film and its theme a long time before we filmed it, and a lot of the script was firmly in place, but wherever there was a need or an opportunity to improvise we did so, and the film is much better because of it.

 

Where was the film shot?

We filmed over five days in spring of 2015, around Dublin City and its surroundings.

1916 The Irish Rebellion to screen at Irish Film Festa 2016

1916 _irishfilmfesta_PP

 
The 9th edition of Irish Film Festa (7 – 10 April, 2016) will screen 1916 The Irish Rebellion, as a part of the special programme dedicated to the Centenary of the Easter Rising, which in 1916 started the process that led to the Irish independence from the United Kingdom and the constitution of the Republic of Ireland. The film will also be streamed live around the world to Irish embassies and consulates on March 16th from a Gala event at the National Concert Hall in Dublin

1916 The Irish Rebellion, narrated by Liam Neeson, is a documentary which examines the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin and the subsequent events that led to the establishment of an independent Irish State and indirectly to the breakup of the British Empire. The film aims to place the Irish Rising in its European and global contexts as anti-colonialism found its voice in the wake of the First World War.

«1916 is a significant documentary — Liam Neeson said — As an Irishman, it is of course part of my history. The film puts the Easter Rising in a broader more international context than has ever been done, and shows how it inspired similar movements around the world. What attracted me most was that the film also focuses on the personal stories of those involved. These stories are very human and powerful.»

Liam Neeson, born in Ballymena (County Antrim), is going to be honored at this year’s IFTA (Irish Film & Television Academy) Awards, on April 9th, for his outstanding contribution to international cinema.

1916 The Irish Rebellion is an initiative of the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and it’s produced by COCO Television.

 
1916 The Irish Rebellion

Three questions to… Andrew Kavanagh, director of City of Roses

city_of_rose_irishfilmfesta

 
Andrew Kavanagh is the director of City of Roses, the only short film in competition at Irish Film Festa 2016 to combine animation and live action tecniques.

City of Roses tells the real story of Paddy Fitzpatrick, emigrated from Dublin to Oregon in the early 1950s, through the letters he wrote home to his mother telling all about his new life in America, his new job, and his new love: Rose.

Kavanagh’s short film features the work of graphic designer Annie Atkins, who recently created props and set pieces for Laika’s stop-motion film The Boxtrolls, Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, and tv series Penny Dreadful.

 

Why did you choose to tell the story of Paddy Fitzpatrick combining live action and animation?

The original idea was to do an animated film based on the letters, but I spent so long telling the story that my own involvement in events became a separate narrative, particularly after I managed to make contact with the family. The easiest way to stylistically contrast the two narratives was to do one in live action and one in animation. It also helped to have the artefacts of the letters themselves as the portal in which the audience is brought into the animated timeline. The letters are the bridging point for the two narratives and feature as the link point in overall the art direction, so it reinforces their vital importance and the fact that they were almost lost.

 

Can you tell us something about the animation technique, especially regarding the composition of the backgrounds? And what about the contribution of graphic designer Annie Atkins?

The letters are the basis for the overall artistic direction of the animation. All the textures are notepaper, the characters were modelled on ink signatures passing across the page and the backgrounds feature post marks, stamps and even windows are modelled on cellophane windows in envelopes. We tried to use as much ephemera from the original letters as possible, particularly in the key scenes at the hospital and cemetery, but the text of the letters is used in practically every scene, often in a very subtle way. I had returned the original letters to Rose before we started the film, so I needed to make several key props for the live action scenes based on scans.

Annie Atkins’s involvement was pure serendipity: our location for the key scenes was at a neighbour’s house – he happens to be a hairdresser. He had been styling Annie’s hair and they got talking about the film. She expressed an interest in the story and we got in touch. I couldn’t believe it, she was a dream choice for this role. She remade the letters down to the smallest detail, even hand making the stamps for each individual envelope.

 

Music plays a big part in the film: how did you work with the composer David Harmax?

I had been contacted by Greg Magee who had done the scores for several of my films: he was working closely with David, who was on a Masters program at the time. He really felt David had the orchestral style needed to interpret the score. All the music is based on Thomas Moore’s “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms“, a song mentioned in one of Rose’s letters as Paddy’s favourite, and one which made him very homesick. As I had so little biographical detail on Paddy at the start of the film, this tune became anthemic for me. It’s a sentimental song about love and it really represents Paddy and Rose’s story very effectively. I needed someone who could arrange it in many different ways and create something entirely new. So I was very fortunate in getting David on board, he recorded the score with live musicians and mixed it separately. There are only about eight musicians but he made it sound so much larger.

 

Three questions to… Michael Lennox, director of Boogaloo and Graham

boogaloo_graham_irishfilmfesta_2016

 
Michael Lennox is the director of Boogaloo and Graham, one of the short films in competition at Irish Film Festa 2016. It was nominated for best short film at the 2015 Oscars and won a BAFTA Award for the same category.

Boogaloo and Graham tells the story of Jamesy and Malachy, two young brothers living in Belfast during the 1970s. One day their soft-hearted dad presents them with two baby chicks to care for…

 

Boogaloo & Graham got a lot of success last year, all over the world: what were the responses of the different audiences to this Northern Irish story?

The responses were amazing and positive. A fear for this type of story was: would it translate globally? And it was exceeded our expectations. That’s the power of cinema.

 

How did you choose Riley Hamilton and Aaron Lynch, the young boys who play Jamesy and Malachy?

I found Riley Hamilton in a Kick Boxing Club in East Belfast. One of the issues with casting young actors is it can seem forced and theatrical. I wanted to find someone untainted by the acting world and use that rawness as an advantage. I could hear Riley having an argument with his mother after a class and I though he has exactly the naturalness I was looking for. You find gems in the most unusual places. Aaron Lynch is a massively talented young actor. He already had experience on film, so was the perfect counterpart to help young Riley as his older brother in Boogaloo.

 

What did you love the most about the screenplay by Ronan Blaney?

I love Ronan’s heart in every story he writes. No matter the subject matter or genre, his story has heart. He has a wildly dark sense of humour with his dialogue, which I find hilarious.

 

Irish Film Festa 2016 Short Films Competition

SHORT_slide

 

Fifteen short films have been selected for the Irish Film Festa 2016 competition. Ten shorts will compete in the live action category and five shorts will compete in the animation one.

This year we received about eighty submissions (animation, live action, fiction, documentary) and we would like to thank all the Irish filmmakers for their participation.

The 9th edition of Irish Film Festa will take place from April 7th to 10th at the Casa del Cinema in Rome.

 

Here’s the list of the selected short films:

 

LIVE ACTION

1. BOOGALOO & GRAHAM (2014) by Michael Lennox

Jamesy and Malachy are over the moon when their soft-hearted dad presents them with two baby chicks to care for. Raising their tiny charges, declaring themselves vegetarian and dreaming of running a chicken farm, the two boys are in for a shock when their parents announce that big changes are coming to the family.

2. GIRONA (2015) by Paul McGuigan

On a long stormy night an encounter with a dark mysterious woman in a strange hotel causes a lonely man to confront his past.

3. HOW WAS YOUR DAY (2015) by Damien O’Donnell

A woman is excited about the approaching birth of her first child.

4. LOVE IS A STING (2015) by Vincent Gallagher

Struggling children’s book writer Harold Finch gains an unexpected house guest- a 20 year

old, hyper-intelligent mosquito named Anabel.

5. LYING DOWN (2015) by Susan Collins and Brian O’Brien

Will needs to move on with his life; unfortunately, Will can’t move in any direction at all. Alannah can’t see what his problem is. Can she help him if she doesn’t understand him? Or will Will stay stuck in the same place, forever?

6. INSULIN (2015) by Andy Tohill and Ryan Tohill

Holed up in a run down pharmacy, a man helps his diabetic wife to survive on dwindling supplies of insulin, trading medicine for food from the outside world. When a stranger comes looking for insulin, and refuses to be turned away, both husband and wife must face the reality of her rapidly shortening life.

7. JOSEPH’S REEL (2015) by Michael Lavers

An elderly man, upon dying, is given the opportunity to relive one day of his life.

8. MY BONNIE (2015) by Hannah Quinn

Two people at sea, trapped between a rock and a hard place, must face the distance between them.

9. WAIT (2015) by Audrey O’ Reilly

When an important pigeon race and a rare visit home by his son Martin coincide, Charlie waits anxiously for a safe journey home.

10. WATERLILIES (2014) by Tanya Doyle

In their sixties seven women have decided to take themselves out of their comfort zone and learn to swim.

 

ANIMATION

1. CITY OF ROSES (2015) by Andrew Kavanagh

In 1950, Paddy Fitzpatrick emigrated to the USA from Ireland. Told through his letters home, the story details his new life, finding a job at Meier & Frank, meeting his future wife, Rose and being drafted for army.

2. AN ODE TO LOVE (2014) by Matthew Darragh

A lonely man on a desert island explores the highs and lows of romantic love when a mysterious companion is washed ashore. Nothing will ever be the same. Or will it?

3. THE TEACUP (2015) by Elif Boyacioglu

Once there was a man who was afraid to go out…

4. UNHINGED (2015) by Tom Caulfield

The squeaky hinge gets the oil. But when the squeak escapes the oil its sure to get you!

5. VIOLET (2015) by Maurice Joyce

Violet is a a young girl who despises her reflection. On the night of the school ball, tired of the abuse, Violet’s reflection decides she’s not going to take it anymore.

Irish Film Festa 2016 celebrates the Centenary of the Easter Rising

Seachtar na Cásca
Seachtar na Cásca

The 9th edition of IRISH FILM FESTA will take place from 7 to 10 April, 2016, at the Casa del Cinema in Rome: dedicated to screening the best of contemporary Irish cinema, the festival will showcase Irish feature films, documentaries and short films, and provide conferences and public interviews with special guests from the Irish film sector.

Fifteen short films have been selected for the competition, ten in the live action category and five in the animation one.

IRISH FILM FESTA 2016 will also feature a special programme dedicated  to the Centenary of the Easter Rising, which in 1916 started the process that led to the Irish independence from the United Kingdom and the constitution of the Republic of Ireland.

This Ireland 1916-2016 programme includes a selection of episodes from 1916 Seachtar na Cásca (The Easter Seven), a seven part historical documentary series narrated by Brendan Gleeson and dedicated to the lives of the seven men who were the signatories of the 1916 Easter Proclamation: Thomas J. Clarke, Sean Mac Diarmada, James Connolly, Patrick H. Pearse, Éamonn Ceannt, Thomas MacDonagh, and Joseph Plunkett. The series is produced by Abú Media Films for TG4 in association with the BAI and is directed by Dathaí Keane; the script was written by Aindrias Ó Cathasaigh.

IRISH FILM FESTA will also screen the nine short films produced by the Irish Film Board under the After ’16 one-off scheme as part of the Centenary commemorations. The After ’16 shorts are: A Father’s Letter by Joe Dolan, A Terrible Hollabaloo by Ben O’Connor, Baring Arms by Colm Quinn, Goodbye, Darling by Elena Doyle, Granite and Chalk by Patrick Hodgins, Mr. Yeats and the Beastly Coins by Laura McNicholas and Ann Marie Hourihane, My Life for Ireland by Kieron J. Walsh, The Cherishing by Dave Tynan, e The Party by Andrea Harkin.

This year’s Irish classic is Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins, which will be screened in Rome 20 years after it won the Golden Lion Award at the 1996 Venice Film Festival where its star Liam Neeson was voted best actor. The film, wich took Jordan more than a decade of work to write the script, tells the last six years of Michael Collins’ life, from the Rising of 1916 to the ambush that killed him in 1922.

The full programme of IRISH FILM FESTA 2016 will be announced in the next weeks.

1916 Seachtar na Cásca to screen at Irish Film Festa 2016

Seachtar_6

 

1916 Seachtar na Cásca (The Easter Seven) is a seven part historical documentary series narrated by Brendan Gleeson and dedicated to the lives of the seven men who were the signatories of the 1916 Easter Proclamation: Thomas J. Clarke, Sean Mac Diarmada, James Connolly, P H Pearse, Éamonn Ceannt, Thomas MacDonagh, and Joseph Plunkett.

The 9th edition of Irish Film Festa (7 – 10 April, 2016) will screen a selection of episodes from Seachtar na Cásca, as a part of the special programme dedicated  to the Centenary of the Easter Rising, which in 1916 started the process that led to the Irish independence from the United Kingdom and the constitution of the Republic of Ireland.

The series is produced by Abú Media Films for TG4 in association with the BAI and is directed by Dathaí Keane; the script was written by Aindrias Ó Cathasaigh.

Irish Film Festa 2016, short films submissions now closed

irish_concorso

 

Short films submissions for the competitive section of the 9th Irish Film Festa are now closed. The festival will take place from April 7h to 10th, 2016, at the Casa del Cinema in Rome.

This year we received about eighty submissions (animation, live action, fiction, documentary) and we would like to thank all the Irish filmmakers for their participation.

We are now working on the final selection and the titles of the shorts chosen for the competition will be announced by the end of January.

Follow us also on Twitter @IrishFilmFesta and on our Facebook page: you’ll find daily news about Irish cinema as well as all the updates about the festival.

Irish Film Festa 2016, submissions for short films competition are open

Ghost TrainPP
“Ghost Train” by Lee Cronin – Irish Film Festa 2015 winning short (live action)

The 9th edition of IRISH FILM FESTA, which will take place from 7th to 10th April, 2016, is now open to submissions for short films from Ireland.

In order to be eligible, entries must be submitted before December 20th, 2015.

shortlist will later be selected from all the entries for the competitive section of the festival.

Films, under 30 minutes in length, can be sent on DVD by post to

Associazione Culturale ARCHIMEDIA
via Segesta 16
00179 Roma (Italia)

Films can also be uploaded online. In this case, a private link must be sent to
info@irishfilmfesta.org or susanna@irishfilmfesta.org.

The authors of selected films will be later asked to provide a DVD copy with English subtitles (please note this is mandatory).

The_Ledge_End_of_Phil_PP
“The Ledge End of Phil” by Paul Ó Muiris – Irish Film Festa 2015 winning short (animation)

9th Irish Film Festa | 7 – 10 April 2016

IFF2015_118
Irish Film Festa 2015

The 9th edition of Irish Film Festa will take place from 7th to 10th April 2016, at the Casa del Cinema in Rome.

A section of the Festival will be dedicated to the Centenary of the Easter Rising, which in 1916 started the process that led to the Irish independence from the United Kingdom and the constitution of the Republic of Ireland.

Follow us also on Twitter (@IrishFilmFesta), Instagram (@irishfilmfesta) and on our Facebook page: you’ll find daily news about Irish cinema as well as all the updates about the festival.