Northern Ireland Screen has announced that three short films have been chosen to go into production from its Access Shorts scheme.
Access Shorts is an initiative to find film-makers exclusively from groups that are under-represented in the film and television sector.
The three films chosen are ‘Muirgheilt’ (written and directed by Tara Hegarty), ‘The Climb’ (written and directed by Lynne Davison) and ‘The Gift’ (written and directed by Murat Akser).
‘Muirgheilt’ centres on a young eel fisherman who discovers first-hand the legend among fishermen that to have a woman on a boat is bad luck. Writer/director Tara Hegarty has an MA in screenwriting from IADT and in 2015 she made her directorial debut with short lyrical documentary ‘Daytrippers’. Also in 2015, Tara directed her first narrative short film, ‘North West’, which will be screening at festivals in 2016. Among her other projects, Tara is developing her feature film script ‘Wandering Star’, shortlisted for the Outfest Screenwriting Prize and for the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab.
‘The Climb’ tells the story of a widow who pushes herself to climb Hen Mountain for the first and only time. Writer/director Lynne Davison has many short films under her belt such as ‘Tryst’ which was officially selected for the 26th BFI Lesbian and Gay film festival London and recently ‘Ducks’ which was featured in the 2015 Belfast Film Festival.
‘The Gift’ comes with the simple tagline “A gift can be a blessing…or a CURSE!”. Writer/director Murat Akser is a filmmaker based in Belfast but born in Istanbul, Turkey. His most recent short film ‘Garip’ (The Hoarder) was screened at international film festivals, most recently at Cannes Short Film Corner and Narin (Delicate) was accepted to Melbourne International Short Film Festival. Murat is currently developing his first feature film and teaching film production at Ulster University.
For more information on Northern Ireland Screen funding decisions, go to www.northernirelandscreen.co.uk.
