Cork student’s study of grief becomes an acclaimed film

IN 2022, a Cork student won Best Overall Film in the First Frame category at the Dublin International Film Festival.

Mark Lynch, from Tower, won the award for His Car, a moving tribute to his father, Mike, who died from illness in 2020.

Now, his latest film, Good Grief, is doing the rounds on the festival circuit, and Lynch is delighted with the response to it.

The first film was made as part of Lynch’s filmmaking degree course at Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology.

The remit was to make a film connected to the pandemic and told from a personal perspective. Lynch chose to explore grief through the lens of the car, which he inherited from his father and says that his experience of grief also informed his latest project.

“Throughout my time in college, I’ve been delving into projects around grief because this life event that happened to me was so big,” said Mark.

I found that film has been the best way that I can express how I’ve been feeling.

Good Grief, produced as part of Lynch’s second-year college course, looks at what happens the day after the funeral, and as Lynch points out in the film, no one tells you what to expect or prepares you for how to cope.

“We see a lot of films which focus on the day of the funeral or even a year later; we see how characters are coping on the first anniversary,” said Mark.

“It was interesting to hone in and capture that feeling of afterwards when you are trying to figure out what is and isn’t normal. Do I wash the clothes? Do I load up the dishwasher? It’s such a bizarre feeling, especially in the family home after an event like that.

“Is it business as usual? Can we chat over dinner? Do I go for a shower? What should I do?”

Lynch’s first film focused directly on his own experience, and he took the starring role, but with Good Grief, the story follows Mary, who is trying to navigate her way through grief.

Lynch says he was keen to show the universality of grief.

“Grief is such a universal feeling, and it’s not just something I felt, so I wanted to tap into it and show that everyone has gone through this in some way or another.

I wanted to show it in a different style from my first film.

" The main character talks straight to the camera; I wanted to get the audience into her head, to experience it first-hand almost.”

Unlike his earlier work, Lynch didn’t direct this film, but he wrote the script and was a creative collaborator throughout the film-making process.

“I worked hand in hand with the director Julia Wysocka,” explained Mark.

“Even though she hasn’t fully experienced the exact same type of loss that I have, she was still able to understand that feeling and really engaged with it and was able to translate it so well to the actors.”

Lynch says he loved being part of a collaboration and that each team member brought a unique eye to it.

“It was very much a group effort between all of us. I really enjoyed the collaboration that we had on this project; collaboration was one of the reasons why I wanted to get into film in the first place.

“I enjoy smaller projects like the first film, where it was just me doing a lot of the editing. Luckily, I had my amazing partner, Maya, to shoot it for me, but that was more of an insular thing, whereas this project was more open.”

“I didn’t want Good Grief to be my thing, where I told the director to follow the script down to the bone.

I wanted to have a strong writer/director relationship, and fortunately, we did.

“We came together to work on this project. We worked as a team to see what we could do to elevate it.

“I wanted other people to bring their ideas, not just from the director but from the whole crew. It was great for the sound designer to implement different things. It was fantastic to work with our casting director, Alannah McQuaid. It was brilliant to have that collaboration.”

Lynch is now nearing the end of his studies and working towards a more extensive end-of-year project.

“I’m in my final year now, and luckily, a project I wrote has been picked as one of the final year films. I’m going to be directing that as well.

“It’s been a fantastic journey, and that collaboration continues. It’s never just down to one person. I think that’s why I love film-making so much; it is such a team effort, and it is such a nice feeling when you pull it off and get to see it on the big screen and get to share it with everyone you know.”

The young film-maker says getting the film made is a big achievement and getting it into festivals is a bonus.

We put a lot of work into this. We are making these stories to share with people, so we push to get them done, to get them finished.

“A lot of stories get pushed to the wayside, something happens, and they don’t get made, but I’ve been lucky.

“With a strong team effort, we have gotten them done. So, to be able to get it into some festivals is a brilliant feeling.”