‘Switch’, a new short film from Thomas Hefferon shot last weekend. The director’s previous award-winning short, ‘The Pool’ is to screen as part of the worldwide Manhattan Short Film Festival in Dublin’s Sugar Club on October 3rd. Furthermore ‘Bye Bye Now’ from Aideen O’Sullivan and Ross Whittaker has won awards at four festivals in the last week.
Switch
The shoot of short film ‘Switch’ recently wrapped in Dublin. Directed by Thomas Hefferon the short examines a tragic story of a man who faces his past wrong-doings. The short is written by TJ Hundtofte (The Pool) and Thomas Hefferon and produced by Dave Leahy (The Pool, Satellites And Meteorites), with cinematography from JJ Rolfe (Visiting Day, Satellites And Meteorites). It stars Jane McGrath (Lowland Fell, Pure Mule 2), Lesley Conroy (An Creatur, Eden) and Barry Barnes (Kings, Veronica Guerin).
Thomas tells IFTN the story behind the film: "Two years after a traumatic car-accident has left a young girl in a catatonic vegetative state, the man who put her there seeks out her mother to atone for his crimes. However, he soon discovers that righting his wrongs may take more than what he's prepared to give..."
The Manhattan Short Film Festival, has picked up Thomas’ other feature, ‘The Pool’ as one of ten films accepted into its line up for this year’s festival. The film will represent Ireland at the festival, which is unique for being the world’s first worldwide film festival.
Starting Monday 28th September 2010 the ten chosen films, which were selected from over 440 entries, will screen 800 times in 192 venues across 40 countries to an audience of well over 100,000 people during the course of the week ending Sunday October 3rd. The Irish screening of ‘The Pool’ will take place in Dublin’s Sugar Club is on Sunday October 3rd at 7:30pm, tickets €5 euro. ‘The Pool’ is also screening in the Iontas Theatre in Monaghan on Friday and in the Galway Town Hall Theatre on Sunday.
‘The Pool’ is a drama about three teenage boys who break into their school swimming pool late one night in order to stage a macho breath holding contest. But as the night goes on, the loud, brash Charlie begins to tease the overweight, child-like Sam.
Only one film can be chosen per country and the films battle it out in the ultimate audience award, as everyone leaving the cinema/venue signs a ballot declaring their favourite film of the night, with the winner being announced late Sunday night in New York. For more information about the screening visit www.thomashefferon.net
‘Bye Bye Now’ enjoys four festival wins.
True Films’ recent short, ‘Bye Bye Now’ has won Best Short at EdinDocs, the Edinburgh Documentary Film Festival, ‘Best Short Documentary at Dallas VideoFest, ‘Best Editing’ at DocUtah Film Festival and was given a ‘Special Mention’ by the jury at the San Francisco Irish Film Festival.. As a result of the Edinburgh win the short documentary, directed by Aideen O’Sullivan and Ross Whitaker (Saviours), is now showing in the National Library of Scotland for two weeks and will be held in the National Archive as a piece of cultural history.
“We’re delighted with the award and particularly happy that the film has had such a good reaction with audiences abroad as well as at home. We hoped the Scots might get it and we’re really happy they did,” Aideen tells us.
The film, which previously won the Audience Award at the AFI/Discovery Channel Silverdocs Festival, is due to screen at a number of forthcoming festivals, including the Kerry Film Festival, DocUtah, Bend Film Festival in Oregon and the Asiana International Short Film Festival in Korea.
Edindocs is a new Documentary Film Festival which aims to bring quality, independent documentary film to Scotland's capital. For more information about the festival visit: www.edindocs.com
