Cork duo feature in acclaimed film about the Irish generation gap

The short film Fleeting is making waves on the festival circuit as it brings attention to a significant societal issue.

This compelling film has been selected to appear in seven festivals and secured an award at the Brighton Rocks Film Festival earlier this summer.

Fleeting takes viewers on a journey with 20-something Saoirse as she makes an emotional trip home to vote in the 2018 referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment.

The film was written by and stars Clare actor Lisa O’Connor and features Cork actor Brendan Dunlea.

Its focus is Saoirse, played by O’Connor, and her father, Liam, played by Dunlea, having a conversation in the local pub just as she arrives home from England, where she works. Saoirse’s mother is ill, and the conversation turns to her father’s belief that his faith in religion will help, but Saoirse has other things on her mind.

Some Irish people can find it difficult to speak their truth with family. It is like that feeling some have at Christmas when they have to remind themselves not to say something, to keep it all in.

Saoirse has a lot going on but can’t say it, so she talks around it. She and her father discuss the GAA, her dad’s time working away when she was young, anything else but mention the one thing she needs to say.

Before meeting her father for a drink, Saoirse stops at a church to light a candle for her seriously ill mum. This ritualistic act is one many Irish people still hold to, even though they may not be practising Catholics. O’Connor says she resonated with the ceremonial aspect of lighting the candle.

“As we get older, we get more spiritual,” she said. 

I don’t want to go back to the church as such, but I like the image of lighting a candle for someone. It is a very Irish thing to do.

Later, Saoirse briefly meets friends who had given her father mass cards, another very Irish thing. O’Connor points out that Irish people hold to traditions even when they don’t go to mass and wanted to show this key aspect of Irish life in the film.

Liam’s view on the subject vastly differs from his daughter’s, but it was important to O’Connor that he not be portrayed as a bad person.

“Liam is from a different generation. He is deeply religious, and to him, abortion goes against everything he believes in, but that doesn’t make him a horrible person.”

O’Connor says her director, although unfamiliar with the situation, understood the importance of acknowledging different opinions.

“I was lucky that my director, Louisa Connolly-Burnham, understood where I was coming from. She is English, so she has a different frame of reference, but she wanted to respect the differences in opinion. 

When Saoirse first meets her friends, they refer to some no-voters as vicious, and certainly some were, but others are like Liam with different ideologies but is still a good person.

Brendan Dunlea agrees that it is important to highlight generational differences and that sometimes it takes time for people to see things differently.

“Liam has faith, which I can understand. I was born into a generation who were deeply religious. Now that Liam’s wife is sick, he has fallen back into all those old beliefs; he needs something to help him, and his faith is there. When Liam and Saoirse are together again, the mass cards are a source of tension. He has placed his faith in God, and she doesn’t think there is any point in him doing that.”

The shoot took place in England in a pub with carefully placed props, including a St Brigid’s Cross. It is impossible to tell that it is not, in fact, a rural Irish pub. Dunlea says having such an authentic location really added to the experience.

“It was wonderful to have a pub that looked and felt Irish. 

The team went to great lengths to add little Irish touches and helped us to feel at home.

Dunlea, a secondary school teacher, retired two years ago. He has been involved in theatre for decades but recently started working in film. He has appeared in the Oscar-nominated An Cailín Ciúin and Two For The Road, written and directed by the Cork filmmaker Lochlainn McKenna. He says he loves seeing how successful young Cork actors are and that there is a fearlessness.

“I got a full-time teaching job in 1984 when full-time jobs were rare. I was fortunate to get it, but I knew then I couldn’t be a professional actor. Nowadays, permanent and pensionable jobs aren’t as appealing as they used to be, and young people who want to act will fearlessly go for it. It is wonderful.

I didn’t have that chance, but now that I am retired and have a lifetime on the amateur stage, I am finally getting the chance to be a professional actor.

The film has a well-known executive producer, the musician Cian Ducrot, who, O’Connor explains, invested in the production.

“My partner is Fionn Hennessy-Hayes, from Ballineen. He is a drummer who has played with Cian on his last two tours, and Cian has become a good friend. I did a Kickstarter to raise funds for the film, and Cian made a very generous donation, which helped us get the fundraiser over the line.”

Fleeting continues its journey on the festival circuit and O’Connor hopes many more audiences will get the chance to embrace it.