Two young Dublin filmmakers, Gemma Kane and Adelle Kenny depict an authentic working class Dublin family scenario.
With the Dublin International Film Festival 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 fulfill 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 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 well-established 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 speaking with them, I expressed how much of my own family I saw in the story, and how it was unlike anything I had ever seen before in relation to working class Dubliners on screen. “That’s all down to Gemma’s writing”, Kenny tells me with pride for her friend and collaborator. “I think that’s what everyone loves, is that it feels authentic. One of the things that we both said at the start of this was that we’re sick of Northside Dublin, Crumlin and Drimnagh…just being KIN. That’s not what it is. Some of it is, but not all. It’s authentic. And that comes down to Gemma’s writing. And just being unapologetic”.
Normalising struggle without romanticising it was of the utmost importance to Gemma when writing this script. She is no stranger to writing about tragedy within Dublin communities, having written an acclaimed play about the 1981 fire in Artane’s Stardust nightclub, which is now being produced into a feature film. However, her main focus here was on everyday hardships, struggles that can even be called mundane, such as needing money, which is often not discussed. “I think it might look like the characters are greedy, but actually, when you look at it, they’re just looking for basic human things”. As was mentioned, every character has a second agenda when saying goodbye to their grandfather, but Gemma does not think it necessary that they be villanised for wanting things or having dreams. One wants a house to live in with her children, one wants an education, one wants a fresh start (that fresh start being to move to Majorca and be a DJ, but still). All of these things aren’t outlandish asks, and they’re not something Kane feels as though anyone should be punished or judged for desiring.
“It’s so rare these days that any of us get to have a fresh start, which is such a basic thing. It’s not a need, I know, but it’s like people decide their lives very early on, and they have to stick to it, because you’ve no money to change your mind. I think it’s a really sad thing that people can’t get a fresh start anymore”.
When Edelle became involved with the project, like Gemma, she was very against these characters being put into any sort of box, or misinterpreted as “greedy”. Her main concern was not making the “poverty porn” we so often see on our screens. She takes representing the groups portrayed within the scripts she picks very seriously, and often gravitates towards stories that centre on complex women. Her first short, Ossobuco (2022) focussed on a couple having a heated interaction in their New York apartment. Kenny decided to direct the film as she originally judged the female lead when she first read the script, and she wanted to try and see from this woman’s perspective and let go of any stereotypical ideas she had of women “like her”.
“I think that working class families are so quickly depicted as the downfall of our economic society, and I think people don’t see their needs as ambition,” states Kenny. “normalize you just wanting a solid home, without making it a pity party or poverty porn, without putting it in the flats which they already demonize. This is the reality of the majority of our country. Ambition amongst working class families should be celebrated, even if the rest of the world in this consumerism focused age doesn’t notice that as ambition.”
The film was partly funded by the National Talent Agency Short Film Fund grant. The grant is quite new so The Race is only the second film to receive the grant. Both Kane and Kenny could not stress enough the importance of grants like these for young independent filmmakers. “There’s not enough opportunity for people but there’s so much talent all around, and I think with things like the NTA, their generosity of support and their kindness and their guidance. They were always there to help”.
Words: Erin Murray
