My Brothers
Will Collins and Rebecca O'Flanagan
My Brothers is the directorial debut from Paul Fraser (writer of Dead Mans Shoes, A Room for Romeo Brass, Somers Town). It was written by Huston School screenwriting graduate Will Collins and produced by Rebecca O'Flanagan, who has lectured on the course over a number of years, and Rob Walpole, a frequent guest at the Huston.
Set over Halloween weekend of 1987, My Brothers is the story of three young brothers' epic quest to replace their dying father's watch. Noel, 17, serious, weighed down by responsibility; Paudie: 11, cocky, not so bright and dreams of playing in goals for Liverpool and Scwally: 7, naïve and obsessed with Star Wars (despite never actually having seen the films). Using a battered bread van, the brothers embark on a journey across the wild Irish landscape on the Halloween weekend, grinding gears and screaming at each other to get to an arcade machine in Ballybunion. Along the way they are detoured by escalating brotherly battles in an off-beat and moving journey that can only lead them home.
Please note that the film will be screened before sound mix and final grade has been completed. It will also be prior to first official premiere so confidentiality, discretion and ban on social networking need to be guaranteed!!
Previous Speakers this year include:
Charles Barr: 2.30 Thursday 14th January, Main Room Huston School.
Alfred Hitchcock - the Irish Angle
30 years after his death, Hitchcock remains both a popular icon and a focus for advanced film theory: he is perhaps the nearest we have to a universal representative of the medium. This session will explore the ways in which he absorbed and blended influences from a variety of different cultures, media and national cinemas - most famously German expressionism, Soviet montage and American narrative structure, but also from elsewhere, not least his native England. And what about Ireland?
Charles Barr is current Visiting Professor at UCD. His books include ENGLISH HITCHCOCK (1999) and a study of VERTIGO.
David Keating: 2.30 Thursday 21st January, Main Room Huston School.
David Keating will present a sneak preview of new Irish horror movie: THE WAKE WOOD.
THE WAKE WOOD is a horror film with a difference, co-produced by Hammer films, it stars Timothy Spall, Eva Birthistle, Dan Gordon and Aidan Gillen.
Still grieving the death of nine-year-old Alice - their only child - at the jaws of a crazed dog, vet Patrick and pharmacist Louise relocate to the remote town of Wake Wood where they learn of a pagan ritual that will allow them three more days with Alice. The couple find the idea disturbing and exciting in equal measure, but once they agree terms with Arthur, the village's leader, a far bigger question looms - what will they do when it's time for Alice to go back?
Christian O'Reilly: 2.30 Thursday 28th January, Main Room Huston School.
Writer Christian O'Reilly will talk about his film, radio and theatrical work and screen INSIDE I'M DANCING (Directed by Damien O'Donnell). When young anarchistic Rory moves into his room in the Carrigmore Residential Home for the Disabled, his effect on the home is immediate. Most telling is his friendship with Michael, a young man with cerebral palsy and nearly unintelligible speech. Somehow, Rory understands Michael, and encourages him to experience life outside the confines of home.
Des O'Rawe : 2.30 Thursday 4th February, Main Room Huston School.
Des O'Rawe will discuss 14TH DECEMBER 1980, the day millions of people around the world responded to Yoko Ono's request for ten minutes of silence to remember John Lennon who hade just been assassinated. The largest group-over 225,000-converged on New York's Central Park, close to the scene of the shooting.
Dr Sarah Edge and Dr Cahal McLaughlin: 2.30 Thursday 11th February, Main Room Huston School.
Since the ceasefires of 1994 and 1997 in the north of Ireland, the peace process has haltingly, but progressively, taken root. The media has played no small part in describing and prescribing the narrative of this journey out of violence. Two perspectives on this process will be offered in this presentation. Sarah Edge will address the representation of gender in securing the peace process from a post-feminist perspective. Cahal McLaughlin will showcase the work of the Prisons Memory Archive (www.prisonsmemoryarchive.com) and its participatory methodology.
Michael Fortune: 2.30 Thursday 18th February, Main Room Huston School.
Michael Fortune will talk about his art and filmmaking practice in the community. He does not script or storyboard, instead he generates material out of the relationships and experiences he develops with the people and circumstances he encounters. In much of his video work the camera remains static, where editing is only ever employed out of necessity rather than luxury.
Although referring to the form of the documentary, all evidence of the documenter or narrator is removed. The intimate nature of the relationships with the people and circumstances he encounters, and the subsequent reflective treatment of the material at hand is a key feature of his work. He recently produced a new publication which has been commissioned by Galway City Council under their Per Cent for Art Programme. (Further information on www.michaelfortune.ie)
Brian Winston: 2.30 Thursday 25th February, Main Room Huston School.
"I knew well it was bullshit": Flaherty Reconsidered.
Leading writer on documentary Brian Winston talks about Robert Joseph Flaherty: the ‘father' of the documentary. A hero in his life-time, then slowly after his death a flawed figure -- an undisciplined, racist fabricator of inauthentic films.
Brian Winston will discuss his research on Flaherty, conducted in the course of writing the script A BOATLOAD OF WILD IRISHMEN for filmmaker MacDara ó Curraidh?n). He argues that the undercutting of Flaherty's reputation has gone too far and, while much criticism is still valid, the man's major contribution to the art of the cinema must not be forgotten. Brian Winston will illustrate his position with extracts from A BOATLOAD OF WILD IRISHMEN, a documentary in progress.
Kevin Allen: 2.30 Thursday 4th March, Main Room Huston School.
‘TWIN TOWN and Beyond'
Kevin Allen, who describes himself as a "Director / Screenwriter / Pig farmer", will screen and talk about his 1997 film TWIN TOWN and will also discuss the sequel, which he is currently working on.
Margaret Corkery: 2.30 Thursday 11th March, Main Room Huston School.
Margaret Corkery presents EAMON.
EAMON, an award-winning dark comedy debut from Irish director Margaret Corkery, is an entertaining and quirky tale of a doomed family holiday. The film follows Eamon, a quietly disturbed six-year old (Robert Donnelly), on a disastrously dysfunctional ‘staycation' with his narcissistic mother Grace (Amy Kirwan) and his well-meaning but dead-beat father Daniel (Darren Healy)
Sylvia Stevens and Gita Sahgal - 2:00pm Tuesday 23rd March, Main Room Huston School.
FILM AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Sylvia Stevens and Gita Sahgal explore the issues involved in making films that raise social issues: where the ideas come from, how can they be funded, and who the potential audience can be.
They will show extracts from films that they have been involved with that raise human right issues, including WOMEN WHO KILL THEIR HUSBANDS, which helped initiate a reinterpretation of the law. They will also discuss the ethical questions, special production considerations such as security, as well as how to maximise distribution.
Sylvia Stevens will also discuss how small independent companies and individuals who want to pursue this type of filmmaking can, in her own words, "stay alive in world dominated by celebrity culture".
Gita Sahgal - 4.30 Tuesday 23rd March, Main Room Huston School.
DOUBLE STANDARDS ON HUMAN RIGHTS?
On 7th February Gita Sahgal, Head of the Gender Unit at Amnesty International was suspended following an interview in the Sunday Times in which she criticised Amnesty's relationship with Moazzam Begg and the organisation Cageprisoners. She said "as a former Guantanamo detainee it was legitimate to hear his experiences, but as a supporter of the Taliban it was wrong to legitimise him as a partner."
Gita Sahgal will talk about her experience and why she went public. She will be raising the complex issue of human rights and whose human rights are being protected and neglected? Is the world's biggest human rights organisation, Amnesty International, breaching its own principles through collaboration with fundamentalists who support jihad, sectarian violence and attack women's rights?
There will also be discussion of the complex issues raised by the suspension and an NGO's reaction to ‘whistleblowing', what right do senior employees have to take internal debates into the public domain? Did Gita Sahgal's principled stand give right wingers who wanted to attack Amnesty an unnecessary opportunity? Does this threaten to undermine an organisation that has defended victims of abuse for decades. Has Gita betrayed a loyalty which jeopardised the organisation? Is there a greater good?
There has been extensive Gita and Sylvia media coverage in Britian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/09/amnesty-sahgal-rights-row
Gita and Sylvia will discuss turning this story into a Dispatches or a Panorama programme for British television.
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Gita Sahgal is a filmmaker who has made many films for Channel 4. For the past seven years she has been Head of Gender for Amnesty International. Sylvia Stevens of Faction Films has made films internationally for the past 25 years especially in Cuba and Latin America. www.factionfilms.co.uk. She is the EAVE documentary expert.
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From 28th August to 4th September the Irish Centre for Human Rights and the Huston School of Film & Digital Media are collaborating on the first year of a Galway summer school on Cinema Human Rights and Activism from: www.chra.ie
