It was a case of have knapsack, will travel. The playwright Conor McPherson lumbers up the red carpet to the Savoy Cinema for the gala screening of Saltwater with a haversack on his back. Maybe he wants to make a quick getaway. It's the night of his directorial debut. Some speculate that his pack might contain golfing gear, a sport which he has taken up lately.
Roddy Doyle and Belinda Moller also walk up the red carpet and Richard Cook, the man behind Kilkenny's Cat Laughs Festival, stops to say hello. Documentary maker Liam McGrath and his girlfriend, actor Karin Negry arrive. Rod Stoneman, chief executive of the Irish Film Board, says the film was "lapped up by the Germans" when it was screened earlier this year at the Berlin Film Festival, where it won the CICAE award for best film. The assembled guests at the film ere include Neil Jordan whose next film is with McPherson; actor Donna Dent whose next play is by McPherson, opening at the Gate in early October, and actor Liam Cunning- ham sporting a severe haircut.
One of the film's newest stars Laurence Kinlan is here with his girlfriend Charlene Soave and his mother Mary Kinlan. Another young face is Eva Birthistle, who plays Deborah, a university student who has a fling with one of her lecturers. Caroline O'Boyle, a Leaving Cert student who plays the part of Tara, is here with her boyfriend, Derek Davis (not the famous RTE presenter) and her parents, Paddy and Rosemary O'Boyle. Saltwater, the comic drama about an Irish-Italian family, goes on general release from next Friday.