€35 Rhode film premiers this weekend

Proving anything can be done with willpower and community effort, Rhode resident Paddy Kelly recently succeeded in shooting his first self-penned film at a cost of just €35.

That film - ‘Reawakening’ - will be premiered this Saturday, May 31 at 7.30pm in Rhode community centre, with an aftershow party for the community in O’Toole’s bar afterwards.

Born and reared in Dublin, Paddy has called Rhode home for the past 13 years. A construction worker until boom turned to bust, Paddy said he turned to film after work dried up and he found himself with time on his hands and nothing to do.

“I started doing some part-time acting,” he explained. “While I was doing that I was learning more about what what goes into film-making.”

Paddy wrote ‘Reawakening’ in just a week this time last year, when he was looking to complete a bursary application. The story centres on a young girl, played by local actress Shona O’Sullivan, who suffers from nightmares.

“Nobody can figure out what they are,” Paddy explained. “After a while they get suppressed, but seven years later they’re back, and these dreams are actually trying to tell her something.”

To get the film made, Paddy looked to Jody Gunning in Rhode community centre. It turned into a community project, with 40 people involved in all during filming that lasted a week last August.

Now Paddy has edited the film down to its final, 38-minute-long state.
Amazingly, the whole process cost just €35 thanks to the community chipping in to help with acting, production, props and locations. “We needed wood for a coffin,” Paddy said, “and nobody had it, so we spent €35 buying wood to make a coffin.”

The premier of ‘Reawakening’ takes place on Saturday in Rhode community centre at 7.30pm.