 |
Photo Credit: Imelda O'Reilly
www.imeldaoreilly.com |
Irish writer and director Imelda O'Reilly has just been invited to
the Cannes Film Festival where her latest project We're The Kids In
America has been selected for development by the Cinefondation Atelier
program
The invitation will allow O'Reilly to showcase her projects to producers and potential funding partners. We shouldn't be surprised. Ireland is having a major film moment,
with writers, actors and directors making big waves world wide – to say
nothing of the sought after location scenery - and the interest just
seems to keep on growing. This week the Kildare born, New York based writer and director heard the
welcome news that her latest film, We're The Kids In America, has been
picked up for development in the Cinefondation Atelier program which
runs as part of the Cannes Film Festival. Established back in 2005 with the aim of encouraging new films and
fostering a new generation of filmmakers by helping them to secure
necessary funding, to date the Atelier program has introduced 202
projects, of which 145 have already been completed and 28 are currently
in pre-production. It's success rate stands at an impressive eighty percent for new
features, in other words. Those are encouraging odds for the Irish
writer and director. “The feature length screenplay of We're The Kids Of America is based
on my short film Eggs and Soldiers (which has already played at forty
seven different festivals across nine different countries). It has been
accepted to the Cinefondation Atelier, part of the Cannes Film Festival,
they accept 15 films internationally and I will representing Ireland in
the competition this year. O'Reilly's new feature length screenplay is about three generations of
Irish father's and son's. It's set in Ireland in 1950's, Ireland in the
1980's and then New York in the present day, exploring classic Irish
themes of identity, exile and in this case abuse in relationship to the
legacy of colonization. If she were to describe the film in one word she would say it is
about culpability, O'Reilly says. “It's a relevant theme to today's world
with the Me Too movement and the question of culpability has an Irish
context. In terms of issues being handed down from generation to
generation, Ireland still has a long way to go. There's a lot of great
storytelling that's coming out of Ireland now and hopefully our
generation will tackle thorny issues that have previously been ignored.” O'Reilly is currently working as an assistant professor at James
Madison University after teaching at NYU Singapore in their graduate
program for three years. “I teach screen writing and film aesthetics and
directing down here in Virginia at the moment,” she says. Getting selected for the Cinefondation Atelier program is a big deal,
but O'Reilly underplays it. “I think I'm the first Irishwoman to be
selected for it. They basically endorse your project and set up meetings
with producers for an international co-production. Eighty percent of
the projects that go through this process get funded.” O'Reilly has the legendary Barbara De Fina attached as a co-producer for
We're The Kids In America (Martin Scorsese's ex-wife and the name
behind films like Goodfellas, Casino, The Color of Money, Kundun, The
Last Temptation of Christ and The Grifters). “I'm looking for a European
co-producer next, so I'm looking forward to the program,” O'Reilly
concludes.
Irish Central
