A few years ago, while spending a summer in New York, I met up with director Niall McKay from Media Factory and IFNY. He wanted me to cut a music video for Susan McKeown, the grammy winning Irish singer based in New York. That video was for a song called No Jericho and can be seen here.
I got an email from Niall in August asking would I be interested in getting the old team back together. So here we are with another video for Susan McKeown!
The song is called ‘On The Bridge to Williamsburg’ and its a duet with Declan O’Rourke. Its a lovely song, thats insanely catchy and the video itself made my quite nostalgic for my old apartment just of Bedford and underneath the Williamsburg bridge!
The song is off Susan’s album ‘Belong’ which you can buy here
This weekend as part of the excellent Irish Film New York festival they are showing not one but two films I edited as part of their showcase of Irish work. King of the Travellers plays tomorrow at 4, followed immediately by When Ali Came to Ireland at 6. ‘Ali’ director Ross Whitaker and producer Aideen O’Sullivan are going to the event which is run by Niall McKay and in that company a weekend in New York would have been amazing but I just couldn’t make it happen.
The films are screening in NYU’s Cantor Film Centre on 8th Street. If you know anyone in New York, you should tell them to go as they will enjoy a great festival and see some quality films including the US premiere of Silence, Run & Jump and Made in Belfast.
Men at Lunch directed by Sean O’Cualain opens this week in New York as part of the films US Theatrical run. The film was edited with great skill by Dathai Connaughton and shot in spectacular fashion by Ray MacDonnacha. I was privileged to be asked to do some additional editing for the US Cinema version. I was proud to do so and I think the film is great. Sean, producer Eamon O’Cualain, Dathai and Ray have made an excellent film and a beautiful love letter to New York. I hope the film proves to be even more successful than it already has been. Best of luck lads…
The film opens this Friday at the Quad Cinema, more details below
The untold story of one of New York’s most iconic images of the 20th century opens in New York City on September 20 at the Quad Cinema.
Men at Lunch is the revealing tale of an American icon, the unprecedented race to the sky and the immigrant workers that built New York in the throes of the Great Depression.
In 1932 New York, the previous decade’s boom of Italian, Irish, and Jewish immigrants led to unprecedented urban expansion, and workers risked life and limb building skyscrapers high above the streets of Manhattan.
In Men at Lunch, director Seán Ó Cualáin tells the story of the iconic photo “Lunch atop a Skyscraper,” that is a definitive counterpoint of epic and mundane – and become a symbol of the indomitable working man.
Taken during the construction of the GE Building, the photo depicts eleven workmen taking their lunch break while casually perched along a steel girder – boots dangling 850 feet above the sidewalk of 41st Street – Central Park and the misty Manhattan skyline stretching out behind them.
For 80 years, the identity of the eleven men – and the photographer that immortalized them – remained a mystery: their stories, lost in time, subsumed by the fame of the image itself. But then, at the start of the 21st century, the photograph finally began to give up some of its secrets.
Director Sean Ó Cualáin explains, ”My brother and I were in an Irish Pub a few years ago researching another documentary when we noticed the famous “Lunch atop a Skyscraper” image with a note beside the picture from a Pat Glynn from Boston, Massachusetts. On the note he stated that the man on the far right holding the bottle was his father Sonny Glynn and the man on the far left was Matty O’Shaughnessy, his uncle-in-law. We realized very quickly that there was a great, untold story here. There’s the wider context – the glory of the skyscraper age and the building of the iconic Manhattan skyline—and secondly the parallel story of the European immigrants who arrived in New York during the roaring twenties and were living there during the Great Depression. Finally the mystery surrounding the photograph had to be investigated and told. Was it a fake? Who took the photograph? And, who might the men be?”
Full details of the U.S. screenings:
New York, NY, Quad Cinema, Opens September 20, 2013
Boston, Boston University, October 3, 2013
Beverly Hills, CA, Laemmle Music Hall, Opens October 4, 2013
Silver Spring, MD, AFI Silver Theatre, October 10, 2013
This is the one of the trailers which I cut for the Irish Film New York event taking place at the Cantor Centre in NYU in the heart of Manhattan at the end of this week Sep 30-Oct02. the festival is run by Niall McKay of Media Factory who also runs the Irish Film Festival in San Francisco which is currently ongoing.
Irish Film New York (IFNY) brings the best in contemporary Irish filmmaking to New York University’s Cantor Film Center for a three-day, six-film screening series. Opening the festival on Sept. 30, 2011 is the New York premiere of the documentary Knuckle, a visceral look at the violent world of bare-knuckle boxing among Ireland’s Traveler community, opening in theatres in December of 2011. HBO is adapting the documentary into a new drama series.
Irish Film New York includes the Galway Film Festival-winning feature Parked, starring Colm Meaney, a story of friendship, hope, and perseverance between two “neighbors” living in their cars. Also new to New York is The Runway, inspired by the true story of a South American plane that crashes in a County Cork town and how the town comes together to send the pilot home, featuring Weeds star Demián Bichir. IFNY is partnering with the San Francisco Irish Film Festival and the Los Angles Irish Film Festival to bring the filmmakers of Knuckle, Parked, and The Runway on a tri-city tour in anticipation of each film’s U.S. release later this year.
“We created Irish Film New York to connect New York’s avid film audiences with the best films and filmmakers coming out Ireland today,” IFNY founder Niall McKay said.
Established through partnerships with New York University’s Glucksman Ireland House, Culture Ireland, the Irish Film Board and the Irish Film Institute, IFNY features six feature-length films, a series of shorts including Academy Award-nominees, filmmaker Q&As, panel discussions, filmmaker receptions and industry events such as a documentary showcase.
Films are screened at NYU’s Cantor Film Center, located at 36 East 8th Street, on Sept. 30, Oct. 1 and Oct. 2. Tickets are $12; $10 for students and members of Glucksman Ireland House NYU. Festival Passes are $60 for six screenings. Tickets and full list of films with background information and video previews are available via HYPERLINK “www.irishfilmnyc.com” http://www.irishfilmnyc.com. IFNY is part of Imagine Ireland: a year-long celebration of Irish arts in the United States in 2011.
John Murphy 