Actor Cillian Murphy gives powerful performance in 24 minute movie set for Cork festival

WITH the mammoth Oppenheimer still bringing the masses to the cinema, a much smaller but no less powerful Cillian Murphy performance is coming to Triskel Cinema in Cork city on September 8.

The arthouse cinema will host the Irish premiere of the short film All Of This Unreal Time, a 24-minute monologue performance by Murphy playing as part of the Sounds From A Safe Harbour Festival, which runs from September 7-10.

The short, directed by the award-winning Irish director Aoife McArdle, follows a man walking alone through a city at night in an almost dream-like state as he speaks of grief, loss, and guilt, and repeatedly apologises for past misdoings.

It is a profoundly emotive and evocative portrait of a man struggling under the weight of his thoughts. The film highlights Murphy’s immense talent for portraying anguish and deep emotion, once again proving that he is one of the finest actors of his generation.

It was produced by Corkonian and Sounds From A Safe Harbour Festival director Mary Hickson, who says the film came about following Murphy’s performance in Max Porter’s play, Grief Is The Thing With Feathers.

“Cillian and Max worked very intimately on Grief Is The Thing With Feathers and became very close and are still very good friends,” said Hickson.

“At the end of the project, Max gifted Cillian a monologue as a personal gift. Cillian sent it to me to read, and the words on the page are powerful.

I remember reading it and being absolutely destroyed. I couldn’t read my laptop for the tears.

“A short while later, I was in Cillian’s house, and we discussed what we could do with the monologue. We knew it was something, but Cillian wasn’t sure about doing it as a live performance on stage; he needed to take a break from theatre after the previous play.”

Murphy and Hickson knew that, whatever they would do with the monologue would involve music. They contacted the renowned producer John Hopkins, who had the same visceral response to Porter’s words as Hickson.

“He got back to me within minutes of reading the script, and he had broken down crying and was so moved that he, too, knew he had to be involved with whatever we were going to produce.”

At the time, Hickson was working with Bryce Dessner, from the band The National, on a project for the Manchester International Festival, but there was an issue with rights, meaning the project could not continue.

“Not getting the rights for our other project proved serendipitous with how things transpired,” said Hickson.

“John Hopkins really wanted to work on the monologue, and Bryce and his brother, Aaron, the other half of The National, really wanted to work with John, and once they read the script, they were as moved as we all were.”

The producer said they still didn’t know what the monologue would become, but the creative team, including Murphy, decided to go to France for a week to hash out ideas. But then the pandemic kicked in and prevented them from travelling.

“We had this wonderful team and such good energy around the project, but we still didn’t know how we would present it,” explained Hickson.

“The Dessners work a lot in a studio in France, and we thought it would be the perfect spot to spend a week together around the table with no preconceived conceptions of what it would become, hang out and see what we could make of it, but then lockdown came.

Covid dictated an awful lot of the next couple of steps. We couldn’t meet in a room together, so we began to meet on Zoom.

The team needed a vital cog, a director, and Hickson said the decision to choose Aoife McArdle was an easy one, but they were uncertain if she would be available as she is busy working in the U.S on shows like the award-winning Severance.

“It was left to myself, Max, and Cillian to consider who might be the director,” said Hickson.

 “We wanted it to be a woman because we had such a male team, so we wanted that balance of a female director, and we thought it would be amazing if it were an Irish person.

“We very quickly came to the same realisation that Aoife McArdle was the first option for everybody. She directed an incredible music video with John Hopkins; we all loved her aesthetic. Aoife is so busy we didn’t think she would have time, but fortunately, she was interested.”

Things tend to move slowly in the film industry, but within two weeks, McArdle had a production company involved, and the team were on location with Murphy ready to start filming.

“Aoife had to be in America to work on Severance, so she was gone. She had this tiny window of availability, so we shot it in three days in East London, and then she was editing it while she was shooting with Ben Stiller on Severance.”

The film premiered at the Manchester International Festival, where it was received with much applause, but due to the pandemic, it didn’t get the audiences it deserved.

Hickson says she is delighted it will now have its Irish premiere, and is even happier to have it in Cork.

“It didn’t get the momentum because of the pandemic, but it’s very special,” she said. 

It is one of those rare life moments you are so proud to have been involved in.

“We all genuinely felt that it is a very important piece of filmmaking, and to bring it home to Cork adds to the feeling.”