Rebecca Daly entered the Irish film world with her acclaimed short film ‘Joyriders’, winning both the IFTA Best Short Film and the Short Film Award at the Galway Film Fleadh, and her successive short film ‘Hum’ was chosen as a finalist for the Berlin Today Award in 2010. Today – she is the first Irish female Director to be selected for inclusion in the Cannes Film Festival Directors Fortnight and is enjoying the success of her debut feature film – ‘The Other Side of Sleep’, which opens in selected Irish cinemas from March 16th.
When discussing the transition between creating a short film and moving into the realm of feature film making, Daly informs that the main difficulty she had to overcome was the huge difference in the time frame that she had to work with. The writer/director outlines how you have to ensure that you maintain the meaning and idea that you want the film to convey throughout the length of the feature. “I don’t think anyone can say making a feature film is an easy undertaking,” laughs Rebecca during an interview with IFTN this week.
Rebecca talks about her unique experience whilst on a residence programme in Paris, living for four months with 5 other directors, many of whom had already made their debut feature films. With the other directors moving on to helm their second features, Rebecca’s confidence grew and she knew that it was possible to achieve her goal, pushing her to strive to create her debut feature – ‘The Other Side of Sleep’.
For her first feature Rebecca collaborated once again with Glenn Montgomery, who she studied with in Trinity and worked alongside on ‘Joyriders’. The idea that was brought together in ‘The Other Side of Sleep’ was not one that Daly had always had envisioned and a particular tragedy of a girl who was found dead wrapped in a duvet in a carpark in Northern Ireland triggered the idea for the film. Speaking about working in a writing partnership, Daly explains that herself and Glen “developed our ideas and what we wanted to portray in the film individually at first, in our own headspace, and then we would come together to discuss them,” whilst working on up script for the film.
In this feature, Daly offers the audience a unique insight into the impact that grief and loss has on a fictional rural Irish community. While exploring the reaction of media and the local community in understanding how this tragedy came to happen, and how it can be prevented in the future. For her debut film, Daly wanted to explore “not the tragedy itself, but to portray the reactions and impact that such an event has on a small, rural community.”
The film took only six weeks to shoot, even with a battle against the unpredictability of Irish weather and the busy traffic of Portarlington, and yet Daly manages to bring us an exceptionally still and haunting film.
In choosing ‘Lead Balloon’ star Antonia Campbell Hughes for the role the director speaks of the vulnerable, almost childlike exterior that Antonia portrays yet under the surface she is strong and capable. “Her first audition was…. Very, very good. Antonia stood out for the role of Arlene from the beginning,” says Daly. Antonia was subsequently nominated for a Best Actress IFTA for her performance in the ‘The Other Side of Sleep’.
Rebecca Daly is one of Ireland’s leading, up and coming directors – and joins the likes of Kirsten Sheridan, Juanita Wilson and Carmel Winters who are offering a refreshingly female voice to Irish storytelling on film.
For her next project Daly will be collaborating once again with Glenn Montgomery, however this time they will be moving towards depicting a love story on screen. For now, Rebecca’s achievements with her first feature film – a premiere at Cannes, nominated for the IFB Rising Star & Best Director IFTA, tells us to eagerly watch what this talented writer/director will do next.
From 16 March Irish audiences will have the chance to see her work on the big screen at the selected locations below.
