Short Films Seen at the 2025 Galway Film Fleadh

Fís an Iarthair (short films from the West of Ireland)

As per the Film Fleadh literature, this shorts program “features stories from the West of Ireland, created by filmmakers rooted in the region. From local history and family life, to personal and community narratives, these films showcase the unique voices and creativity of Galway and its surroundings, celebrating the wild spirit of Ireland’s West.” (Seen 9 July 2025)

Jane’s a Junkie: Introducing this rather hard-hitting piece filmed in Tuam, County Galway, writer/director David McDonagh joked that he and his collaborators had decided to try making a film without a screenplay or any of the other structure that normally goes into filmmaking. It does a slapdash style that looks deceptively improvised. Clearly, however, a lot of thought and passion went into this production. It seems to be two different movies mashed up into one. One is about the title character’s interactions with her father and her dealer. The other is about the spread of hard-right views in the Traveller community. Emma O’Grady is powerful as Jane. She grabs the screen and doesn’t let go. McDonagh explained that she could not be at the screening because she was in court that day because of her participation in protests over the situation in Gaza.

The Grotto: Donal Haughey’s film opens with Pearl in her garden, telling us how much pleasure she gets from her flowers. As she continues talking and we follow her to other locations, we learn where that love of gardening came from. She was left by her parents at St. Anne’s Industrial School for Girls and Junior Boys at Lenaboy Castle in the city of Galway. Her years there were difficult, sometimes abusive, but she found solace the castle’s grotto. The happy memories she does have of her fellow students and how they all became a family for one another are a stirring testament to the human spirit.

Romance Is Dad: David Moran’s comedy could nearly be a sitcom pilot. A married couple, frazzled by the rigors of becoming new parents, escape for a weekend away in hopes of rekindling their romantic life. Things go awry. Notably, in the best romantic comedy tradition, they have mistakenly brought the bag with the child’s toys, meaning their own, ahem, adult toys are now with the granny minding the tot. The comedy chops here are top-notch with Matthew Malone in the role of Drew and Mikey played by none other than Rory O’Neill, who seems to be forging quite an acting career under that name. (He is best known as his alter ego, queen of Ireland herself Panti Bliss.) The show is stolen, however, by Rosemary Henderson as one extremely amused grandmother. This crowd-pleaser was filmed in Dublin’s Clontarf Castle Hotel where a suit of armor was put to inventive use.

Dive: During a family meal at a Galway hotel in Salthill, Jess slips away, but not simply to go to the ladies’ room as she said. She dons swimming togs and heads for the diving board just off the nearby promenade. This moment has been a long time coming, and though a series of flashbacks we learn why this is so important. The experience is cathartic for Jess (a nice performance by Alison McGirr) and, by extension, for us too. Director Amy Joyce-Hastings adapted the film from her award-winning short story. To date, she is best known as an actor for roles in films like The Callback Queen, Who We Love and Báite.

Hearth: This brief documentary by Mary Deely and Eamonn Dunne follows a couple of professional artists as they each drive to the back of beyond of County Mayo to visit isolated people living on their own. The specific purpose of their visits is to spend time mentoring these people in painting or drawing in a comfortable environment. The HeARTh Project was founded in 2009 by Deirdre Walsh and Breda Mayock. Six artists are currently in the collective, and to date more than 100 people have been reached. We see firsthand how much difference this work has made in the lives of two of the women being mentored.

Muck: Full disclosure. This movie was filmed within a mile or so of my house, and my neighbor is the producer. I can objectively attest, however, that it got the loudest applause of any film in this shorts program and deservedly so. This is a slick horror mini-masterpiece filmed on the shores of Lough Corrib. It is Christmas Day, and a family in a very old house—the perfect setting—are sitting down to dinner. In typical alienated, angst-ridden mode, a teenager (the very convincing Nessa O’Leary) sulks. The menu for dinner is an issue, but this isn’t the usual generational carnivore-versus-vegan debate. It’s a whole lot darker than that. Writer/director Barra Convery builds a steadily accumulating sense of discomfort, then dread, then pretty much sheer horror. While employing the standard horror-movie tropes, the story also works as an allegory for generational conflict and the weight of historical guilt. The talented cast also includes Brendán Dunlea, Seán T. Meallaigh, Sarah O’Toole and Vera Kilgallon. The aforementioned producer is Ruaidhrí Hallinan (Remote Strutting, Where the Old Man Lives). A special shout-out for the production design by Lukasz Simon and Mattie O’Toole.

Reality Check: Nightmare or dystopian future? Either way, this film will make make even the most hardcore social media influencer think twice about the honesty of their posts. A two-hander comedy thriller, we see what happens when a teacher decides to give an Instagram star a lesson in authenticity. Tony Walsh is the educator who has gone off the rails. A very funny Sarah Fahy is his pupil/victim. The film generates genuine suspense as well as impressive makeup work. Still in her teens, the director, Olivia Louise Curto, a Leitrim filmmaker with roots in Dublin and Milan, already has a number of notable films under her belt (My Way, about a learning disability called dyscalculia, was in this year’s Dublin International Film Festival), and she has an impressive portfolio of realistic special makeup effects on her web page.

Brown Bread: Undoubtedly the sentimental favorite of the shorts program, Shaunagh Connaire’s quasi-autobiographical short boasts acting royalty in the form of not only Fionnula Flanagan (too many credits to list) playing the quintessential Irish mother but also Katie McGrath (Jurassic World, TV’s Merlin and Supergirl) as her high-achieving emigrant daughter. Áine is home from New York for her godmother’s month’s mind. She missed the funeral because of work (something that did not go without notice locally), and now her mam Betty is doing what Irish mothers do best: she’s laying a guilt trip on her—not just about the funeral but about living abroad. The quibbling over how to make brown bread encapsulates the contentious but loving relationship. Try watching this without a lump in the throat or, indeed, a tear in the eye.

Miscellaneous Short

Screened preceding Robert Quinn’s Cinegael Paradiso. (Seen 9 July 2025)

Galway Film Society @ 60: To commemorate the six-decade mark of the Galway Film Society, Mikey Whelan put together this collection of reminiscences of people who were there at the beginning of this mainstay of the city’s movie appreciation. History is traced from screenings of foreign and independent films on the campus of the local university (these days called the University of Galway) to the controversies caused by some films in an Ireland that was, at the time, dominated by conservative society and the Catholic Church. A new home was found in the Town Hall Theatre (where this film was screened as part of the Galway Film Fleadh), which was renovated to be a cinema as well as a venue for live productions. There is less attention paid to more recent developments, i.e. the building of a new home in the form of the Pálás Cinema, which opened in 2018 but had to close in February. Happily, the Pálás was re-opened for five days for the current fleadh.