The young filmmaker recently announced he is in the planning stages for his debut feature ‘The Broken Law of Attraction’.
Slattery has worked on award-winning shorts such as the award-winning ‘Today’ and ‘Skunky Dog’, which was also nominated for an IFTA.
He talks to us about the move to feature-length projects, the inspiration behind his upcoming film and the process of funding ‘The Broken Law of Attraction.'
IFTN: Where did the inspiration for the character of David Connolly come from?
To be very honest, I drew a lot of inspiration from my own experiences. I always felt a sense of fatherly obligation toward my younger brothers, as the oldest son in a fatherless family at that time. With that responsibility came a sense of expectancy; to always do the right thing; play by the rules; stay on the right path.
But you know what – life is not always that straightforward. Sometimes an opportunity presents itself to you that requires a little bit of rule-bending and although our choices may arise from good intentions they can still lead us astray. Well, let’s just say, poor old David Connolly gets led astray from time to time.
IFTN: Did you see a big difference in your writing process, with the move from short form to feature?
Believe it or not, I completed my first draft of this story on June 25th 2009, prior to writing my shorts. The structuring and research process is identical. However, the script itself did evolve over those years as I got better at writing.
IFTN: You’ve had great success with your shorts in the last few years. What pushed you to move to feature length projects?
I’ve always treated every short project as practice for a feature and it’s only now that I truly feel ready to make that next step. I also think that there’s only so far you can go with short films whereas features have an opportunity to go on cinema release and let’s face it, most, if not all, filmmakers want to see their work on the big screen.
IFTN: Could you talk us through how Zanzibar productions became involved?
I’ve admired Edwina Forkin for some time now. Not just her work but her personality. She’s an extremely kind, joyous, dedicated and sincere human being and just the kind of person I long to go on a creative journey with.
We’ve crossed paths at festivals over the last couple of years, became good friends and threatened to work with each other one day. I carried out those threats by sending her a script and thankfully she, along with her equally awesome producing partner Deirdre McNally, decided that they’d like to get involved. So, here we are…
IFTN: Can you tell us how the funding is going and what your timeline is for production at the moment?
That’s right, we launched our campaign on Indiegogo so over the next 40 days we’ll be doing everything in our power to gain people’s interest in this project and hopefully some people will be in a position to support us. We’re also aiming to gain the support of the IFB, BAI and others in order to raise around €350,000. A lorra lorra money as our Cilla would say but we believe this story and team involved is strong enough to warrant such an ambitious sum. Our goal is to shoot in Dublin over the coming months but, of course, that’s all subject to what money we raise.
