Cannes!

I first saw the posts going up on Facebook.
Steve Hall's "Safe" and Paddy Murphy's "The Cheese Box" had been accepted to the short film corner of the 69th Cannes Film Festival.

The Cannes Film Festival! The mere title suggests film stars and the elite that accompany them. Where the best artistic movies are born and recognised.
To be acknowledged by the Cannes jury is a recognition that you are among the best that the industry has to offer.

A French film festival that the Americans hold in high esteem. Where the movers and shakers meet on the French Riviera to plan productions, deals and distributions that will resound throughout the worldwide industry for the following 12 months.

And here were the local lads on their way to join them.

Yes, I was jealous. But I was thrilled.
The Limerick Film industry was born about five years ago when Keith Bogue and Simon McGuire started making short films. Both times I was approached and asked would I take a role. No money involved of course, it was all low budget, as in NO budget.
No one was getting paid. They still don't.
We did it then and we do it now, for the love of it. And the hope that something bigger would come.

And then, boom! Along comes 2016, the impending opening of Troy Film Studios and locals going to Cannes... it was all starting to pay off.

In January this year I was asked to act in a short film in Belfast. Expenses only. I read the script and

said yes straight away. Michael John Daly had written an excellent short script entitled Mother's Milk And Cookies and had already won 3rd place in the the Best Short Screenplay category at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival awards. We shot it in a day in Belfast, directed by Conan McIvor, and I came home and forgot about it...

Until I got the news that Mother's Milk And Cookies was also accepted at the Cannes Short Film Corner...I was going to Cannes!