In the summer Kirsten Sheridan graduated from Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology with a diploma in film and video. Last weekend she scooped the prize for Best Irish Short at the Cork Film Festival for her 19-minute film, Patterns, which explores the world of autism.
"I couldn't believe it when I heard I won. I really didn't think I had a chance - in fact, I'd gone home when the awards where announced and next thing at about 11 p.m. I got all these mad calls from my friends screaming down the line."
Awards weren't part of her original plan, however. "I just wanted to be as honest as I could. I didn't really think about targeting a particular audience, but the audience is the most important thing - other people have to be able to get what you're doing.
"My advice would be: be passionate about what your doing. Making a film is such hard work, you really have to know exactly what it is you want to do and you really have to want to do it."
Kirsten worked with two very young actors, Ben Engel (12) and Joshua Gregory-McCarthy (eight). "They were fantastic, they gave me loads of ideas - I couldn't get over them. They had to portray a day in the life of two brothers who are inseparable. Tommy, the older one, is autistic.
"I didn't want to make a film about disability. I wanted to make something which showed Tommy's world as being just as valid, if not more valid, than ours.
"Although they don't engage like us, people with autism feel all the vibes in a room. I'm very interested in the world of autistic people." Kirsten didn't want to use music to portray that world, which she thought would be too literal. Instead she used close-ups for certain scenes to show life from Tommy's perspective. "Tommy loves repetition. When he watches the water drip down the drain, or stares mesmerised at a black-and-white tile pattern on a floor, I only focused on what he looked at, to show that at this moment this is the only thing in his world.
"I also worked with a brilliant sound designer who created a landscape of sound for the film."
If at all possible, Kirsten thinks experimenting a bit with ideas is very useful. "I would love to have been able to experiment a bit more with ideas for showing Tommy's world. I didn't really have the time - but if you can, it's the best way to learn about film and to create something you really think works."
