FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

Q: What was the genesis of this film, and how did it evolve over the course of development to production and completion?

"The story began life much as the film does, around my own family Christmas dinner table. A local robbery had been carried out while the target was attending a family funeral, aided and abetted by RIP.ie. “But of course, it could never happen to us” my father said. The surreal conversation that followed, where my family offered up how and when and who could be robbed locally, made me laugh and got me thinking. What kind of people would do such a thing? Who would they need to be?

The idea found it’s way to the page during COVID when I found myself sequestered, shall we say, with my brother, sister and aunt in my late grandmother’s house. With a 30-day free trial window on a popular screenwriting program, I wrote that first draft. That version was very different from the film we eventually made, but the feeling at the centre of it was already there. The strange intimacy of this family who see each other once a year, who know each other completely and not at all.

I continued developing the script over the years that followed working as a frontline crew on sets across Ireland and the UK. Along the way the film changed enormously, shaped by producers and funders, who helped me understand what the film wanted to be, finding that balance between the dark comedy and the tension and emotion of the heist. That process continued through production and into the edit.

The cast brought a new dimension again to these characters on set, while the edit fundamentally shaped the film’s rhythm and energy. So, by the time we finished it was almost unrecognisable from that first draft and yet somehow, it still felt very much like the same film.

Entirely different and the same all at once."

Q: What did you feel was the most fulfilling element of working on this film?

"I was always aware that I’d never seen my family on screen before. Not the exact shape of it. The rhythms, the familiarity, the small irritations, the things that do get said and the things that don’t need to be. There was a real thrill in trying to bring that to life.

The Cosgroves are obviously not my family. These people are morally compromised, selfish and pitiable. But there is something familiar in them. When the film is doing its work, we recognise them, perhaps even empathise with them, before pulling the rug and leaving us wondering why we ever felt for them at all. Being in a room full of people and watching them react to those moments has been the greatest joy.

I was also conscious that this was going to be an Irish Christmas film, a film that, hopefully people revisit in years to come around that time. So, to be making a cynical one felt particularly fitting. Christmas is always such a heightened time, all the expectations, the enforced togetherness, the looming threat of emotions boiling over, it was fertile ground for this particular family. Working together with our heads of department and cast to build that world, to infuse it with their own experiences of Christmases Past in order to make it feel both timeless and contemporary was an incredibly fulfilling task.

To be able to do that in and around Sligo was very meaningful to me. I’ve spent every adult Christmas there, so there was something special and bizarre in equal measure about seeing this imagined world exist alongside the real one that inspired it, sometimes quite literally a few doors away from where it was written all those years before. Serendipity has tended to follow this film."

Q: To what extent was your on-screen talent vital to the success of the film?

"They were absolutely vital. We were blessed with the depth of talent and wealth of experience brought to this film by its on-screen ensemble. From the very first, the cast understood these characters and, most importantly, there was space to discover them.

What they brought was their own perspective on who these people were, how they felt, lived and hurt one another over the years. There was always room to play in and around the words of the film, to find little details that made these relationships feel lived in. The tonal question we approached carefully. There was an agreed shorthand between us to cover the scene as these goofy lovable rogues and then as the worst people you’ve ever met, who have no time for each other and even less for the outside world. Between those two truths lived the film.

It is a film about communication too and some of the most important things are not in the words at all. They are in the unsaid. A shared glance, a sigh, an awkward silence the change in an expression. Those tiny moments tell us the things about these people they can never say.

From Ardal’s put-upon and frustrated dad, to Michelle’s emotionally unavailable maam; from Peter’s snide and selfish older brother to Ruth’s bombastic and fragile middle child; from Jacob’s gentle and goading Dorian to Simone’s completely unpredictable and irreverent Aunt Rosaleen: from Stephen’s laconic and piteous Charlie, rounded out by Micheal’s haughty priest, Eoin’s sycophantic cop and Julian’s dangerous sergeant. Each actor elevating the material, really bringing it out and off the page.

I am still amazed at the cast we assembled, and incredibly grateful to them for their trust, patience and willingness to play. As a first-time feature director, having actors of this calibre put their trust in me is something I’ll never take for granted."

Q: What does it mean to have your work acknowledged by your peers in the Irish film community and have it showcased for consideration for the IFTA Awards?

"As frontline crew on various productions, I’ve often had the opportunity of support other filmmakers in bringing their creative dreams to life. So, getting my own film to a point where it can be watched and considered by my peers means a great deal to me.

Ireland’s film community is a relatively small one, with a disproportionate number of world class individuals and talent. I’ve had the good fortune to work with many of these incredibly talented craftsmen and craftswomen from across this island. A number of them worked on my own film, many of them friends already. To get to do that is very rare thing. For them to now encounter our film as it goes into wider circulation has been quite special to me.

The film itself has already taken us further than I could have imagined with that first draft in COVID. We were able to premiere at Galway, where winning Best Irish First Feature was an incredibly affirming moment for me and everyone who worked on this film, then to take the film across to the Americas for a run of festivals, to now have the film brought to the wider IFTA membership for consideration is a part of this journey I am massively grateful for.

For so long, You’ll Never Believe Who’s Dead has lived in the imaginations of just a small group of people. To now bring that out into the world, to let it go and allow people to come to it in their own way, for my peers in the Irish film community to take the time to watch, consider and engage with it, is the biggest privilege in and of itself."