Making a break for it

LEADING LIGHT Matthew O’Brien stars as the lead, Ed Smith, a struggling playwright who returns home to Mayo.

Edwin McGreal

Filmmaking was always something Kevin Henry had a passion for. But the realist in him always asked whether it would be a viable career.
It’s why when he finished his Leaving Cert in St Gerald’s in Castlebar, he opted for a ‘safe’ college course – Science in NUI Galway – rather than chase his dream.
“I got the advice that doing film is not an easy thing to do – and it’s not. But in my 20s I could not settle, and I said I wasn’t going to be asking ‘What if?’ in 20 years’ time.”
So Kevin bit the bullet and went back to college as a mature student, studying Media Arts in DIT. But he had another crossroads in front of him.
After graduating, he was working in a DIY shop in Dublin to pay the rent, and writing his film script on the side. It was a slow process.
“I came out of college and realised very quickly that no one is handing you a film or TV job. That’s the trade-off in this line of work. I know plenty of people who have degrees but haven’t worked much in film or TV. People want a steady income stream, and that’s tough to get in film and TV,” Kevin told The Mayo News.
“It was hard to make progress on the script, so I just packed in the day job. I was never going to get the writing going unless it was my main work.”
With that decision came the inevitable financial hardship. The script for his film ‘Soulsmith’ complete, Henry applied for Arts Council funding. He was turned down but not deterred.
He was working for nothing, and crucially, he needed everyone else involved to be willing to do the same.
“The film was all made with goodwill. One of the hardest things was finding people who would work for free and who would also be very good at what we needed them to do. But we were very lucky in that we got some very good people on board,” he explains.

Accomplished debut
‘Soulsmith’ is written and directed by Henry and produced by Seamus Waters. It tells the story of playwright Ed Smith, who once had the Dublin theatre scene at his feet but his most recent encounters with the critics have left him feeling bruised. The passing away of his father prompts him to return to Mayo. A prickly character, he rubs people up the wrong way until some friendly advice reconnects him to what is important
It’s described by Film Ireland as ‘an intelligent film with a lot to offer’, dubbing it ‘an accomplished debut’ from Henry and Waters.
The film begins and ends in Dublin, but much of it is set in Mayo, and viewers will recognise  Castlebar locations like Lough Lannagh and Johnny McHale’s pub, as well as places further west, like Old Head, Silver Strand and Mweelrea. Henry’s home house on Curradrish Road is used as Smith’s home in the film.
Locals feature too – Richie Wynne, Donna Ruane, Declan Askin and Tommy Canavan to name but a few.
Henry says the filming, which took place in Mayo in April 2015, was challenging but fun. “The days can be very long. We worked 20 hours one day … they really were incredible people. You were running on adrenaline.”

Mayo screenings
Henry signed off on the film this time last year, and it premiered at the Cork Film Festival last November. His parents, Jerry and Carmel, and siblings, Ruth, Jerome, David and Ronan, all made it to the screening.
‘Soulsmith’ will be shown to a home crowd for the first time this Friday night, with a premiere at Mayo Movie World. (A cheese and wine reception will be held at 8pm, followed by the screening at 8.30pm and a Q&A session with Henry and some of the cast afterwards.)
It will be screened several times a day in the weeks that follow, and it will also be on show at Westport Town Hall this Sunday at 8pm.
“I’m a mixture of excited and nervous to see what crowd shows up. I’m proud to show it to locals,” he says, confident that it will go down well. “It has a good balance of laughter and darker moments.”
If the film is deemed a success, Henry hopes it will be taken by cinemas nationwide, but he’s is already immersed in his next film, which is at an advanced stage.
He has the script written and will soon be seeking funding, hopeful that his hand will be strengthened by the fact he already has a film to his name. In the meantime, he’s working as a researcher on TV3’s Gogglebox.
It pays the rent, but he won’t be asking ‘what if’ in 20 years time. He’s living the dream.

See mayomovieworld.ie for ‘Soulsmith’ screening times. Tickets for the Friday-night premiere in Castlebar are €12 and available solely from Mayo Movie World and Downtown Records, with no online availability.