Wicklow Gets Its Close-Up

With Wicklow Stories, a bunch of local filmmakers are putting our cinematic county up on the big screen…

With their showcase festival hitting The Whale this Saturday, it’s clear that Wicklow’s new breed of filmmakers are thinking big.

Each of the writers, actors, directors and producers in this cinema collective believe that great films really need to be seen on the big screen.

“Cinema does something to us that no other artform does,” says Wicklow Stories co-founder Brian Matthews Murphy. “Something that no other medium can.

“It transports us, takes us away – and at the same time, brings us home…”

Yikes, we feel a song coming on. But the beard-stroking man is not wrong. Cinema is life writ large, helping us all revel in the small details as we bathe and bask in that glorious widescreen technicolour. Or, on occasion, arty-farty black & white, of course.

“When the lights go down and the cinema goes quiet,” continues Brian, “there is an understanding that something incredible is about to happen.”

You can find out just how incredible this Saturday, October 8th, at The Whale, when the Wicklow Stories Film Festival lights up the big screen at 4pm and 7.30pm.

Alongside the line-up of short films – including Sam Uhlemann’s The Forgotten and writer-producer Ronika Merl’s anthology offering The Pier (which boasts five directors) – musical guests include working class hero Cian O’Melia and the retro-groovy Dylan E. Crampton.

“It’s going to be magical,” says Matthew. Better be.

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