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Hazel Cullen and Megan K Fox, winners of the first Kerry Film Bursary.
KERRY County Council’s Film Bursary, the first of its kind in Kerry, has been awarded to writer/director Megan K. Fox and producer Hazel Cullen.
Out of 80 submissions, the panel selected Megan and Hazel’s short film entitled Cailín Álainn.
The film follows a teenager’s personal story of discovery and strength in the face of adversity. It will feature a summer stay at Irish College and will be shot on the Dingle Peninsula.
In awarding the bursary the Arts Officer at Kerry County Council Kate Kennelly mentioned the importance of supporting film making in the county.
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“Kerry is a wonderful place to shoot a film and offers tremendous choice in terms of locations right across both our built and natural landscape. Supporting young film makers who want to shoot in Kerry and who have the potential and the talent, this is something that Kerry County Council is keen to nurture”. The Bursary is funded by Kerry County Council and The Arts Council.
Megan K. Fox has written the script for Cailín Álainn and will also direct the film. Megan is an award-winning Writer/Director whose short film work has earned over a dozen accolades and high profile nominations, including Best Director Under 25 at BAFTA qualifying Underwire Festival, winning the WFTV Lifetime Shorts Competition, Shooting People’s Film of the Month and nominations for the Young Directors Awards Ireland and Kinsale Sharks.
Her latest short film The Shift has just won Best Cork Short at the Cork Film Festival in November this year. She is currently living in Dublin and developing her debut feature film script.
Hazel Cullen is a freelance producer from Co. Wicklow, working in Ireland and the UK. Her previous projects include Screen Ireland (SI) funded Time Traveller with Forty Foot Pictures, SI funded Honest with TW Films, and Smother for Revolution Films and RTE.
“While the story of Cailín Álainn is that of an under-represented minority experience, it’ll resonate with anyone who has ever felt unsure of themselves and who they are. Which, I think, is most of us!”, Hazel Cullen, the producer stated on receiving the Film Bursary from Kerry County Council.
Megan K. Fox went on to say that “the placing of the story in the beautiful setting of the Dingle Peninsula will lend a certain poetry to this story about a teen discovering their own nature and realising they too can be beautiful”. The film is set to preview at Kerry Film Festival in October 2019 and will be shot next summer in West Kerry. A film to look forward to for sure.
“Supporting young film makers who want to shoot in Kerry and who have the potential and the talent, this is something that Kerry County Council is keen to nurture”…And yet if you want to watch any film outside of the mainstream you have to travel inordinate distances to cinemas such as the IFI in Dublin and the Palas cinema in Galway. If Kerry County Coucil really cared about potential talent they’d give us a place where art and film can be experienced in Kerry. Such a place would give filmakers and artists in Kerry an outlet that they do not yet have. While it’s great that sports get such support in Kerry I feel that arts/culture are neglected.