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“I just couldn't believe this story hadn't been told” – ‘Crash and Burn’ Director Seán Ó Cualáin
07 Dec 2016 : Katie McNeice
The Irish documentary continues to screen in cinemas this week, revealing the rise and fall of Irish Formula One racer Tommy Byrne, the young star whose story is becoming recognised as one of the most important in Irish sporting history.

Ó Cualáin’s early days with the ‘Crash and Burn’ project saw him move from grainy VHS footage to IFB support and eventually to both pitching and screening at the Sheffield Doc/Fest.

With the project now reaching audiences in Ireland through Wildcard Distribution and set for a television broadcast on RTÉ in early 2017, he talks us through the highlight moments of getting to know and becoming impassioned by Byrne’s dramatic career.  

‘Crash and Burn’ is written and produced by David Burke of Dot Television with editing from John Murphy (Mattress Men) and cinematography from Réamonn MacDonncha (Men at Lunch).  

IFTN: Talk us through how you came to the topic of Tommy Byrne, and at what point you knew you had enough to craft a compelling documentary?

“I got a call from David Burke, the producer, who I’d worked with on ‘Rás Tailteann’ with for TG4 a few years back and he mentioned Tommy Byrne. I’d never heard of Tommy, I didn’t have a clue who he was and I’d never heard his story—I’m not a racing fan.

“It wasn’t until I Googled him and David sent me some more details on Tommy that I just couldn’t believe the story hadn’t been told. I knew very soon this story was there to be told, and should be told, because I believe it is one of the most important stories in Irish sporting history.

“I was able to get some more information on Tommy from YouTube like his famous McLaren test, that’s a Formula One test and some of his races, all via grainy VHS tapes.  

“Tommy’s is the story of a young lad going from Dundalk to Formula One in four years. It’s unheard of! That dramatic arc, the journey from nowhere to the pinnacle that is the sport of Formula One in four years hasn’t been done before and it hasn’t been done since. He did it all without a penny in his pocket so I knew very soon this was something very special and I had to be very careful with it.”

IFTN: The project had one of its first votes of confidence at the Sheffield Doc/Fest two years ago. What does it mean to you to see the project come full circle and screen there this year?

“Very early in the project the Irish Film Board was on board with us. They helped us get our trailer and we also had support from Colm O’Callaghan at RTÉ. When we went to Sheffield, we knew we had some commitment from the IFB and from RTÉ as well but then we had to get some more funding.

“Lucky for us, people BBC there totally loved the idea, loved the trailer, and he got us working with the team from BBC Northern Ireland, and that is how it was made.

“You don’t actually realise how big and how important Sheffield is until you get to go there, and the quality of the stuff that’s there is mind blowing. It’s probably the biggest in Europe, the most important in Europe.”

IFTN: There has much such an applauded collection of Irish documentaries travelling this year like ‘Mattress Men’, ‘Bobby Sands: 66 Days’ and co-productions like ‘Land of the Enlightened.’ It must be great for you as a documentary filmmaker to see the format do so well in Ireland?

“It helps you see there’s an opportunity there to push ahead and try and do these massive features, and the bar is very high. The two Irish ones we saw recently were ‘Bobby Sands: 66 Days’ and ‘Mattress Men', both as good as anything you’d see on any TV station or from any country.  That we have two more documentaries from Irish filmmakers going to Sundance, the standard could not be higher.

“You always look at what other directors you respect are doing. When they do a good job the pressure is on you to do an equally good one and to push yourself even more. There’s a big group of us there, a lot of us know each other well and it’s an exciting time.

“We’re probably a little late to the international documentary party but I think there is a real strong presence there and that the IFB have really helped us out and have seen that we’re able to do it. We can tell short stories, we can tell long documentaries and feature documentaries which sell internationally. For us, RTÉ have also told us they will be broadcasting ‘Crash and Burn’ in the Spring.”

IFTN: Many people have seen ‘Crash and Burn’ from its festival run, but since it released to cinemas last Friday, what has the response been from your peers and the public?

“In the festival run some people do see it but you are aware as a production that you have to build up speed toward a theatrical release. We brought Tommy to Dundalk where we had special screenings for its first night and it was really good to be there. He was a little bit nervous bringing his story back to Dundalk but they loved it.  

“It is drawing a lot of motorsport people or sporting heads to it, people that don’t tend to watch feature documentaries, but they’re going. A lot of people I speak to after are seeing Tommy’s story for what it is—a human story. His arrival at the top of his sport is so dramatic and his fall again is so dramatic, that it is full of highs and lows.”

IFTN: Your ‘Men at Lunch’ short documentary has proved instrumental in Producer Éamonn Ó Cualáin becoming commissioned for the #Time100Photos project. Do you hope ‘Crash and Burn’ will inspire people to keep looking at your subject Tommy Byrne, following its release?

“I think ‘Crash and Burn’ is a story that’s not going to go away. Hopefully we can bring this story back into the mainstream folklore of Irish sports. The interest is there in terms of the story. It’s a matter of bringing it to a wider audience. There may be a book, a documentary or there a film? Probably. There is a lot in Tommy’s story we didn’t have time to tell, those dramatic upturns and downturns that just didn’t make it into the documentary.

“Tommy’s story is remarkable. When it’s on a national broadcaster with RTÉ I think that will grab people’s attention—that he was as fast as Senna, that he had this remarkable chance at Formula One and he did it without a penny in his pocket. You need millions, tens of millions, to race in Formula One and this guy did it without a bean. That’s a testament to his talent and people are interested in great talents that didn’t make it.”  

IFTN: What other work can we expect to see from you in the future, and will we continue to see you work with non-fiction?

“The one I’m working for at the moment is ‘In the Shadow of the Glen’ or ‘Anseo i lár an Ghleanna’ for TG4. It’s a portrait of a west of Ireland village where I live that's probably not able to survive in the 21stcentury. It’s a very personal portrait and one that’s very important to me; it’s the death of rural Ireland and how I see it and the loss for the people living in the village.

“If villages across the west keep dying all their identity and memory and culture will go as well and it will be a terrible loss to the nation. People in my village feel that there’s nothing we can do to save it, but that if we can’t save the village we can save its heritage or its identity in some way.”

‘Crash and Burn’ screens at the Eye Cinema Galway this evening, Wednesday December 7th followed by a Q&A with Seán Ó Chualain.

Visit the Eye Cinema Galway Online to Book Tickets 





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