Signing autographs for Italian children outside the festival venue was the glory moment of the project for Anna Taylor, one of the main actors in the short film written and performed by her fellow students.
"After the prize-giving myself and Duncan Smith, who also played a lead role, were mobbed by Italian kids. That was mad - we don't know when they saw it or how they understood it properly. The film was in Irish!" The weekend trip to Italy to represent Ireland at the Ciak Junior Film Festival was the final stage of a project that begun months before. The Mount Temple Comprehensive students, now in their final year, first heard about the competition in Irish class, from their teacher Bernie de Roiste. Three scripts in total were submitted by different groups of students at the Dublin school, and in February they learned that one of the scripts had been chosen. Deirdre Mullins, Grainne Gannon, Aife Walsh and Cliodhna Puirseil were the writers of the original script and under the guidance of Bernie de Roiste set about getting the ball rolling.
"The film is about two-timing: a guy does the dirt on his girlfriend, gets caught, and is left on his own with no girlfriend. The guidelines for the competition were very broad, and we wanted to do something that was light-hearted and fun. A lot of the other entries tackled serious subjects like bullying, teenage pregnancies and so. "Ours was a simple story - we were students being students and we really were very happy with the final result," says Cliodhna Puirseil.
Filming was scheduled for early April, so time was limited. The first step was to revise the script, and arrange logistics. The main scene was scripted to take place in a cinema, and a venue had to be found. UCI in Coolock, not far from the school, was happy to provide the location.
Casting was the next step. "There was a great response not only from other students but also from the teaching staff. There were nine actors with talking parts, and a lot of extras were needed for group scenes. We also needed people to take charge of costumes, make-up, production assistants and continuity. Teachers acted as mini-bus drivers. And we all had to do schoolwork on top of this," says Grainne Gannon.
"Filming was very long and tiring, especially as the script was in Irish. It ended up taking a day-and-a-half, and then three days in post-production," says Anna Taylor.
Then the judging came quickly. "It was over the Easter break that we heard we'd won the overall competition and were to represent Ireland at the UNESCO-sponsored film festival in Treviso, close to Venice," Duncan Smith says. "On May 25th we went to Galway for the screening of all five of the shortlisted short films on TG4, followed by a questions-and-answers session and interviews, and then on June 1st we went to Italy."
Comortas Fiseain TG4 is back this year, offering another school this sort of opportunity. All you have to do is prepare a script and send it in to TG4 by December 15th; up to five scripts will be selected and then produced with the assistance of a professional TV crew. The winning team (up to four students and a teacher) will travel to Italy and represent Ireland at the Ciak Junior Festival next June. For more information contact Padraic O Raighne at TG4 (tel: (091) 505050; e-mail: padraic.o.raighne@tg4.ie).
