Announced March 15th 1999
Bord Scannan na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board and RTE announced the winners of the 1999 Short Cuts selected from over 200 applications on Monday March 15th. This year's selection panel included the illustrious writer Roddy Doyle who following the selection process stated that "I was very, very impressed with the quality of the scripts."
Short Cuts aims to add to the range and scope of Irish short film-making and to encourage new talent in all areas of film production. Special attention is given to directors, writers and producers with imagination and visual flair, taking a fresh look at contemporary Ireland.
The successful short films are:
Forecourt
Director: Orla Bleahen Melvin,
Writer: Katy Hayes,
Producer: Anne-Marie Casey
The story of a pubescent girl's sexual and romantic fantasies, which find an unexpected outlet at the petrol pumps where she works outside of Mullingar.
Majella McGinty
Director: Kirsten Sheridan
Writer: Morna Regan
Executive Producer: Ed Guiney
An imaginative little girl in 1970s Derry gets confused when her games of Charlie's Angels spill over into an imagined 'real-life' drama, and she thinks her mother has murdered her father and disposed of his body.
Dogsbody
W/Director: Karl Golden
Producer: Martina Niland
When Seany's nephew Ger gives out a bad loan on his account, there's nothing for it but to kidnap the man's prize greyhound and hold it hostage until he pays him back. But the quiet Ger and the silent dog soon develop an affinity . . .
In Loving Memory
W/Director: Audrey O'Reilly
Producer: Barry Dignam
A recently bereaved woman has a novel way of staying in touch with her dead husband, and becomes a fixture in the local cemetery until the day that she goes to join him.
Mir Friends
Director: Peter Kelly
Writer: John Fagan
Producer: Neal Boyle
Based on a true story, Mir Friends relates the tale of a friendship that develops between a middle aged ham radio operator in Donegal and Colonel Alexei A Constantin, Soviet Cosmonaut, trapped aboard the Mir space station orbiting the earth.
Between Dreams
W/Director: Ian Fitzgibbon
Executive Producer: Paul Donovan
A night in a cancer ward, where Stephen, a patient, ravaged by chemotherapy, listens to the man in the next bed dying, and has a dream of beauty and bliss that comes as a surprise to him.
The winners will be showcased at several Irish Film festivals and screened on RTE. Five films from last year's Short Cuts are to be premiered at the Dublin Film Festival on the evening of Thursday April 22nd.
For further information contact Bord Scannan na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board at (091) 561398 or Independent Productions Unit, RTE at (01) 2083429
Or check the Filmboard Werbsite at www.iol.ie/filmboard
