In the final act, for me at least, the film takes on a meditative and dreamy tone. Slow motion features. Was that to show the kind of endless days and nights these celebrations seem to suggest? The slowing down of time so it can last forever.
It is hard to create a feeling for people who have never been to a place but I wanted people to feel sad that they had to leave and I think it works. My editor, Tony Cranston who is a fucking genius, constructed the ending before we did the rest of the film. We sat down and watched all the rushes and I said I am not quite sure what the structure of this film is going to be. He said do you mind if I try something and we cut the ending first and we kind of constructed the film backwards. We didn’t even know Chris was going to be our framing character and we saw him in the end of the movie so we thought he was going to bring us in to the story as there he was watching and being part of this. I love the way the end of the film works, it is a film I am very proud of and it is going to leave people with this odd feeling of sadness at leaving this place they have never been to.
You mention sean-nós singing earlier, have you seen Pat Collins’ Song of Granite?
I haven’t. I went to try see it in the IFI in December and every time I tried something came up. I am dying to see it because I know Tadhg O’Sullivan the editor a little bit.
I was thinking about Song of Granite watching your film and it could very well be a companion piece.
People have said that to me that have seen both, that there is an affinity which is nice. I would love to think so. And there is a bit of a double bill happening at the festival as they are showing Pat Collins’ new film before mine.
Finally, in terms of ADIFF will you get to see other films and is there anything in particular you are looking forward to?
I haven’t booked anything. I would like to see Pickpocket and Performance with Paul Schrader attending. I promised to bring my daughter to see My Neighbour Totoro as she loves that film. Of the new films, I will probably hear some word of mouth and go along to some of them. It is almost an intimidatingly huge array of choice so I will do my best.
While You Live, Shine premieres at the Audi Dublin International Film Festival on Wednesday, February 28th.
CinÉireann / February 2018 47