Local premiere for O'Brien's new film at the OFFline Film Festival
Edenderry writer Eugene O’Brien’s new film, The Flag, gets its local premiere at Birr’s OFFline Film Festival next Thursday night.
Described by its creator as a “warm-hearted, broadly appealling comedy”, The Flag tells the story of Harry Hambridge (Pat Shortt), a down on his luck Paddy struggling to keep his head above water in London.
Harry’s already bad luck takes a turn for the worse one day when he loses his job, father and pet hamster, Mouse. During his visit home to bury his father, he discovers a letter from his grandfather in which he claims that he raised the flag over the GPO in 1916.
The flag now resides in an army barracks in England and with nothing to lose, Harry, in conjunction with his motley crew of friends, decide to try and reclaim it.
Speaking to the Offaly Independent, Eugene revealed that the inspiration for the film came from a colleague’s real life discovery of a statement from his grandfather claiming that he had placed a flag on top of the GPO during the Easter Rising.
Seeing both the comic and dramatic potential in the story, Eugene says that he and long-time collaborator Recks both saw Pat Shortt as the perfect man for the role of Harry.
The comedian-turned-actor is joined on screen by a stellar cast featuring rising star Moe Dunford, Simone Kirby, Ruth Bradley, Brian Gleeson, Sorcha Cusack and Des Keogh. Lighter in tone than much of his previous work, Eugene says that he’s looking forward to seeing how the film goes down with cinema goers in his home county.
“It’s a feel good movie, I think it works and we’re proud of. Some critics may hate it but I stand by it and there are some very good performances in it.”
The Flag is just one of a number of highlights of this year’s OFFline Film Festival, which gets underway on Wednesday night next with a screening of the critically acclaimed Irish drama, A Date For Mad Mary.
For the past couple of years Eugene has been a judge in the festival’s international short film competition and says that it’s a great advertisement for the midlands. “It’s a very enjoyable experience. It’s a really good festival and has found an identity for itself with the short film competition.
“People from Finland or Hungary or wherever the shorts have been made usually have never been to the midlands before. They might have been to some of the glamour counties, but get to see a whole different side of Ireland that people usually don’t see.”
For more information on the OFFline Film Festival visit: www.offlinefilmfestival.com.