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THE RACE With the Dublin International Film Festi
val wrapping up its 24th iteration recently, many young Irish filmmakers are still riding the high of having their work viewed by their peers and those that have been long time objects of their admiration. It was an 11 day occasion full of events such as galas, red carpets, educational masterclasses and insightful Q+A’s. As for the films themselves, the festival showcased the best in new Irish and international features, documentaries, and of course, short films. There were many impressive short films premiered at DIFF this year, including first time efforts and returning filmmakers. The Race, written by and starring Gemma Kane and directed by Edelle Kenny, follows the last day of a dying man, Pat (Raymond Keane), and his family who gather around him to say their goodbyes. Many of these farewells come with a hidden agenda. The story is told from the perspective of Leah (Kane), who wishes to enroll in college but does not have the means. She struggles with her need for money to fulfil her dreams, whilst not wanting to spend her last moments with her granddad trying to gain something from him. Kane, a graduate of The Gaiety School of Drama, wrote this film as a love letter to her own grandfather, and families like hers on the northside of Dublin. “My grandad was kind of like the poster boy for not letting the truth get in the way of a good story,” Kane tells Totally Dublin. “He’d just spin these yarns, and a lot of people – as in my family – got pissed off after a while and would try to shut him up, but I always revelled in it, because they were so 44 outrageous, so outlandish, that eventually I was like, “You know what? Let’s just listen to what this man has to say”. So that’s where the beginning of the film started.” Kane attributes listening to her granddad’s mad stories as the main inspiration for the film and shares humorous anecdotes like the time he tried to get all the family to pitch in to buy a Darndale logyard horse for Christmas in the belief that it was going to be trained as a race horse. Kane recounts these types of stories with love and nostalgia, but above all else, sheer amusement at the character he grandfather was. The film’s director Edelle Kenny, a wellestablished writer/director with multiple short films already under her belt, recalls the one and only time she had the privilege to meet Gemma’s granddad, Noel, before he unfortunately passed away in December. “Thankfully I got to meet him one day and I was with him for all of half an hour, and the amount of stories we were getting out of him, we felt he needed to be in the film. He never got to make his cameo in the film but it’s really nice that he did get to see it”. Kane and Kenny are both natives of Dublin’s northside, Kane from Artane and Kenny from Balbriggan, and this informs much of the film’s themes. Kane and Kenny have on many occasions expressed their frustrations with the representation of Dublin’s northside on screen, with portrayals of people from these places often being one note and relying on harmful stereotypes. Although they acknowledge that those stories are the realities for many individuals, they are not the only stories worth telling. When Two young Dublin filmmakers, Gemma Kane and Adelle Kenny depict an authentic working class Dublin family scenario. WORDS Erin Murray Top: Gemma Kane in The Race Bottom: Edelle Kenny