Fintan Connolly

Fintan Connolly is an Irish film director, screenwriter and producer living in Dublin. Most of his earlier work has been in television documentaries, where he explores social issues in Ireland through a series of interviews. He has also made films, notably Flick (2000), Trouble with Sex (2005) and Eliot & Me (2012) through his production company Fubar Films.

Career

Connolly directed the short film Angel on the Rocks in 1985. He co-produced, with Helen Fahy, the short movie Horse (1993) directed by Kevin Liddy. This film won an award for "Best European Short" at the Premiers Plan Festival in Angers, France in 1994. Working with co-director Hilary Dully, he worked on multiple television documentaries for RTÉ, Channel 4 and TG4. These include Framed! (1987), No Comment (1988), ...and finally France (1988), For Better Or Worse (1989), No Comment II (1991), Notice To Quit (1992, rights of older tenants), 50,000 Secret Journeys (1994, abortion), and Comely Maidens (1995). As a single director, Connolly has directed the documentaries Sisters (1998), Priests (1998), Out of Nowhere (2000, asylum seekers), Ainé's Journey (2000) and Singleton (2002).

Connolly made his feature film directorial debut with Flick in 2000 in conjunction with producer Fiona Bergin. The film starred David Murray, Isabelle Menke, David Wilmot, Gerard Mannix Flynn, Catherine Punch and Alan Devlin. The plot focuses on two small-time drug dealers going about their business in Dublin. Connolly wrote the film's script with little expectation of it being made. He shot the film in 18 days with no budget. The movie had its world premiere at the 44th Murphy's Cork Film Festival in October 1999. The Sunday Independent said "In many ways, Fintan Connolly's first film, Flick is a breath of fresh air. We get to see Dublin on the screen – a very contemporary Dublin, too. It's about time. In Flick, there are no horses in lifts. You won't spot the Chieftains playing trad on Moore Street. This is real Dublin – and what first strikes you about the film is that Flick is a love letter to Connolly's native city."

This was followed in 2005 by Trouble with Sex, starring Aidan Gillen and Renée Weldon, for which he received two Irish Film and Television Awards nominations. The film was premiered at the Dublin International Film Festival in February 2005. The film tells the story of a young career woman who quarrels with her boyfriend at a party. She leaves the party and wanders into a local pub, where she falls for the bartender. The movie follows the early days of the relationship that follows. Trouble with Sex was the second feature created through a director/producer partnership between Fintan Connolly and Fiona Bergin. Connolly told Jennifer Hough "only 20 per cent of directors get to make a second feature, so I've been really lucky."

In 2012 Connolly made Eliot & Me, a children's adventure drama, co-written with Fiona Bergin and featuring his daughter Ella Connolly. The movie had its world premiere as the opening film at the Film Festival Zlin in May 2012.

In 2012 he also completed a documentary about Aosdána, an affiliation of Irish artists, called The Art Tribe This film explores the position of artists in Irish society, public funding for the arts, as well as broader issues of creativity and culture.

Controversy

50,000 Secret Journeys, which, along with all Connolly's early documentary work, was co-directed with the documentary filmmaker Hilary Dully, is a film' in which three women who had abortions tell their stories intercut with news clips recounting recent events in the ongoing legal struggle between pro and anti abortion campaigners was pulled from the RTE schedule on 29 March 1994. The decision provoked a strong protest from the station's film-makers. The Tuesday File film "50,000 Secret Journeys" was to be screened after the main evening news. A statement issued by SIPTU on behalf of the TV producer/director and director grades regretted the decision of Director of Television not to broadcast the programme. "It's a matter of serious concern to TV producers and directors that such a programme should be deemed unsuitable for inclusion in one of RTÉ's main current affairs programmes," it said. An RTÉ spokesperson said the decision had been taken "for internal RTÉ reasons which we don't want to go into." The documentary was eventually screened on RTÉ on 27 October 1994 at a later time and was followed by a studio debate on abortion in Ireland chaired by Marian Finucane.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1985	Angel on the Rocks	Director, co-writer	20 minutes short film
1993	Horse	Producer	30 minutes short film
2000	Flick	Director, writer	82 minutes crime drama
2000	Country	Associate producer	92 minutes drama
2005	Trouble with Sex	Director, co-writer	89 minutes drama
2012	Eliot & Me	Director, co-writer	60 minutes drama

Recognition

Ciaran Carty in the Sunday Tribune said "What's exciting about this new crop of directors is that they've broken away from the preoccupation with theory and ideology that for so long bedeviled Irish independent film-making. They're not interested in using movies as part of an argument about the nature of Irish identity: instead they show Irish life as it is – or was – and let the audience make what they like of it. Their movies are movies, not statements or messages.” Michael Dwyer in the Irish Times described the film as "a lean, tightly coiled contemporary drama resourcefully achieved on a remarkably low budget." John Daly in The Examiner stated "It is a stroll through a sleazy, sexy modern Dublin where danger and romance dance a back-street tango a mighty long way from any Bord Failte advert." This theme was continued by another reviewer "This is a radical departure from the drab facades which featured in Family and The Commitments, and marks an acknowledgement on the part of a new breed of filmmakers that Dublin council-housing, tower-block, urban-cowboy image has become as much a Bord Failte stereotype as John Hinde's picture-postcard turf-cutters of the 1960s".

Pete Walsh, programmer at the Irish Film Institute wrote "Connolly's impressive first feature makes a welcome addition to the relatively small band of truly independent low-budget Irish films. Written by Connolly himself, and developed with producer Fiona Bergin, the finished work has a genuinely "indie" feel and a strong sense of its makers' commitment to a vision. That vision included making Dublin a virtual character in the drama, and few films have made more expressive use of city locations. Add a mesmerising performance from David Murray, a terrific score by Niall Byrne and genuinely atmospheric photography by Owen McPolin, and Flick emerges as something of a triumph for local filmmaking."

The Sunday Times referred to the films Flick and Trouble with Sex as "Irish noir fiction", saying "Fintan Connolly's movies Flick and Trouble with Sex depict a thoroughly noir-looking Dublin full of moody shadows and drenched in blue light, but there is no corresponding heart of darkness in the plot." In The Irish Times Donald Clarke wrote "Featuring gloriously chocolaty photography by the always-terrific Owen McPolin, Trouble With Sex presents the capital city as a glass space-station populated by sleek achievers who keep their supernaturally crisp underwear on while rutting in various semi-public places. After being dumped by a boyfriend oikish enough to own golf clubs, a well-dressed lawyer (Renée Weldon) takes up with an enigmatic barman played by Aidan Gillen. Connolly, whose 2000 movie Flick demonstrated considerable flair, creates an impressively dreamy atmosphere." Another reviewer said "The film vacillates between modes of melodrama and avant-gardism, unsure what kind of film it is."

Yvonne Hogan in Irish Independent stated "There is a palpable chemistry between the two leads that make the viewer care about whether or not they get together. Weldon has a raw, gutsy screen quality and it is always great to see Gillen in an Irish production. The ennui of single thirty somethings in the newly wealthy Ireland is a field ripe for cinematic interrogation and Connolly is to be commended for grappling with it."

Awards and nominations

• 2005, Irish Film and Television Awards nomination for 'Best Director' for Trouble With Sex
• 2005, Irish Film and Television Awards nomination for 'Best Film' for Trouble With Sex

External links

Fintan Connolly interview YouTube[3]

• Fintan Connolly website
• Flick official website
• Making Flick
• Trouble With Sex official website
• Making Trouble With Sex
• Eliot & Me official website