CinÉireann / April 2018 9
Irish short film Terminal has been made available to watch for free online.
The film sees two women meet at an airport departure terminal, waiting to board a plane to Manchester in order to seek safe and legal abortion.
The film, written and directed by Natasha Waugh (Fight Back Films), shines a spotlight on the bodily rights of women in Ireland. The film aims to humanise women who face criminal charges for seeking abortions in Ireland, and who therefore travel abroad to have the procedure.
Terminal won Best Irish Short Film at the Indie Cork Film and Music Festival, and has gone on to receive numerous
nominations from other festivals, including the Irish Film Festival London, and the Dublin
Feminist
Film Festival.
Terminal was produced by David C. Lynch (Hopehapp Productions), in association with Driftwood Doll Films. The film stars Andrea Kelly (Lenny Abrahamson's Prosperity and Rebecca Daly's Joyriders.), and newcomer Aoife Doyle.
With the referendum on the repeal of the 8th amendment next month it is a very timely release.
In the wake of screenings at home and abroad, and having recently being acquired by InFlight for AerLingus, Jason Branagan’s short film Jaffa has been released online. Within a day of being released through Vimeo the film was featured on the streaming
platforms narrative category.
The film tells the story of a young man who learns he can’t have children and struggles to come to
terms with his new reality while trying to find a way to break the news to his girlfriend.
Written and directed by Branagan and produced by Roisin O’Brien, the film stars Danny Mahony (End of Sentence) and Aoife Honohan (The Ladies). The film was shot by Cinematographer Noel Greene.
Jaffa marks the third time that writer/director Branagan has teamed with actor, Danny Mahony. The pair first worked together on the micro-budget feature Shoebox Memories, after which they filmed the award-winning short film Transitory.
The team behind the film have decided to make the film available for free in the hopes that it sparks a conversation about the very thing that it deals with – male infertility. The subject itself still carries a stigma, but recent studies have examined the incidence of male infertility around the globe and it concluded that 15% of couples, amounting to 48.5 million couples, are affected by infertility.
Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board (IFB) has announced the successful projects in the latest round of its Frameworks short film scheme. The successful projects are: A Cat Called Jam, Lady Isabel & the Elf Knight, Nitelink, and Hedy.
A Cat Called Jam is written, directed and animated by Lorraine Jordan and produced by Jeremy Purcell. A cat called Jam longs for the world to see him as he sees himself, but it’s hard when his outside doesn’t match.
Lady Isabel & the Elf Knight is written and directed by Cashell Horgan, animated by Graham Isherwood and produced by Andrew Moore. A lonely princess dreams of a shining knight but has to make do with an Elf Knight instead.
Nitelink is written and directed by Aidan O’Sullivan, animated by Finbar Coyle and produced by Greg Connolly. A bereaved man, grieving and drunk, idly asks for a way out. Unfortunately, in doing so, he annoys those that could give him just that.
Hedy is written, directed and animated by Andy Clarke and produced by Matt D’Arcy. A savvy young homeless girl creates a robot as a surrogate for her departed younger brother. Not everyone is happy with their partnership.
About Frameworks
The scheme has produced global award-winning films to a consistently high standard including titles such as Alan Holly’s Coda, which was shortlisted for the 2015 Academy Awards®, Nicky Phelan’s Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty, Jack O’Shea’s A Coat Made Dark and Vincent Gallagher’s Second to None; all of which went on to become internationally award-winning films.
Funded by the IFB and RTÉ, projects selected for FRAMEWORKS funding will combine creative exploration with an ability to appeal to a general audience.