Well I have to say I am totally delighted to have won the Best Actress category for “Covies” at the Underground Cinema Awards this year. It was a fantastic night and superbly put together down to the fine details by Dave and all the Underground team. This year marks the first Underground Awards and with Labour party leader Eamonn Gilmore speaking on the night, I felt he hit the nail on the head saying that this is the first of many years of success for Underground and what a privilege to have been part of the first one.
The Underground team have already begun the process to kick off next years monthly screenings, and the films which were presented throughout this past year will continue to tour the UK and Ireland meaning an even wider audience will gain access to view these amazing independent short films.
In the run up to the Awards night David Byrne from Underground and I did a radio interview with Richie Beirne for “Arena” RTE’s flagship Culture/entertainment/ Arts programme. You can listen to the radio interview here:
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I haven’t any of the official photos from the night yet so here is just a snapshot of me on the night!!
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It’s not every day you find yourself sitting alone with an Oscar winning actor, let alone a legend like Sean Penn, so it is certainly a moment I’ll remember!
“This Must Be The Place” is the new feature film from Paolo Sorrentino and will mark the English-language feature debut of the Italian filmmaker. The plot centres around a middle-aged wealthy rock star, played by two time academy award winner Sean Penn, who becomes bored in his retirement and takes on the quest of finding his father’s executioner, an ex-Nazi war criminal who is a refugee in the U.S.
My part in the film was a mystery woman who caught the eye of Cheyenne (played by Sean Penn). We filmed the scene on the last day of shooting in Ireland and it was an absolute pleasure and privilege to work with him in any capacity. I was lucky in that we were the only two actors on set so we sat together between takes and chatted and shared a drink after filming. I have to say he was an absolute gentleman and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and look forward to seeing the results next year when the film is released.
Sarah
Here’s a snap shot of me in the trailer waiting for my
leg cast to set. I can’t give away any more then this
regarding costume or anything so this is it I’m afraid!
Once again I’m a little slow off the mark to write on this but I’m delighted to have received a “Best Actress” nomination for Covies from Underground Cinema, which I’ve previously written about, and would like to update here on the upcoming events.
As I’ve mentioned before Underground Cinema is a monthly screening of short films held in Dun Laoghaire. Over the past year Underground has screened 100 Short Irish Films, 16 Documentaries, 11 Music Videos and 5 Animated Films. Now that the screening year has come to a close Underground is facing into the exciting time of the Underground Film Festival and Awards Night.
Nominations Night took place at the beginning of August and nominations were announced for categories primarily for work on independent short Irish films. Included in the nominations night was the list of the 30 short films which have been selected for screening at the Underground Film Festival which will take place in the Screen Cinema, D’Olier Street on September 16th & 17th at 7.30pm nightly. Following the Film Festival, on the 18th September, the Awards night will be held in the Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel in Killiney.
I have to say I was thrilled to hear I’d received the nomination and I’m really looking forward to attending the awards night in September. Another great piece of news is that my first project “Waiting Room” on which I co-directed, wrote and acted in has been selected to play along with Covies at the Underground Film Festival on the Friday night… brilliant!!
Well, there you have it! Head along to The Screen cinema on 16th and 17th September for a unique cinema experience and support the independent film makers of Ireland.
Hey Everyone,
Recently I mentioned that I’ve been working on a sci-fi short film “Effigy Road”. Well, the director of the film, Rob Kelly, has put together a teaser trailer from the footage taken so far. This project is still in production with some ongoing filming taking place in Carlow town which should be wrapped over the next couple of weeks.
But for now thanks for reading and please enjoy this teaser:
It’s Galway Film Fleadh time of year again. The festival kicks off tomorrow and runs for 6 days until Sunday 11th.
Covies, the web series in which I played lead female Bridie O’Malley, has undergone a face lift and been edited by director Len Collin into a feature film which has been accepted by Galway Fleadh as one of their wild card screenings. Covies is due to air in the Cinemobile, which will be parked outside the Town Hall Theatre, on Thursday 8th at 10am. Tickets are an extremely reasonably priced €3 so if your in the vicinity please do drop in and give it a view.
I am still hopeful I will make it to the festival myself at some stage during the week.
I have been very quiet on the blog front over the past few weeks so this is a short update of a couple of smaller projects I was involved with in June.
I accepted a role offered by the grad students in IADT Dun Laoghaire leading to an enjoyable and eventful week working with them on “Escape”. The piece was very visual and we had some interesting set ups, including a night shoot in a forest. Broken mirrors were suspended from the trees and reflecting light everywhere for part of a dream sequence.. It looked great on the night and I’m sure it’ll transfer well onto screen.
I also embarked on my first attempt at a short film of my own. An actor friend of mine, Linda Teehan, and I have been talking about putting something together ourselves for a little while now, so we bit the bullet and got down to business. We improvised some ideas together first of all, and although our ideas ranged from drama to black comedy, somehow a script for our 4 minute comedy short film evolved. Thankfully we were fortunate to enlist the help of Noel Brady of Phoenix Artz for camera and editing, and with him Ashleigh Ekins for sound. Our final input came from Dylan McDonough who played the role of the doctor for us. The concept was simple enough, so a short filming period and lightning quick editing from Noel meant our little short was packaged up and ready for festival submission within a matter of days. “Waiting Room” is the first production from TeeCarr Productions, we hope to get accepted into festivals and hopefully we’ll move on and film a few more little projects in the future.
That’s all for this little update… stay tuned as always for more information.
In a previous post I spoke about the short film, Guerrilla, that I worked on with Dunsany Productions. The film is due to be finished in the summer and will begin the festival rounds from then, but for now you can check out the new trailer below!
Enjoy!
Sarah
“In the near future, the economic structure of the entire western world collapses under massive recession. In an attempt to quell the chaos that ensues, the EU sets up the ECHO; combining all member states’ armies into one to enforce martial law on the people. Years pass and even when relative peace returns, the ECHO refuse to give up their power and a totalitarian Pan-European regime begins. In Ireland, the Guerrillas are formed to fight and remove their foreign oppressors. From Dunsany Productions, ‘Guerrilla’ is written and directed by Blaine Rennicks, produced by Randal Plunkett, edited by Dominique Brennan, director of photography is Stefano Battarola and music by Darius McGann. Starring Jack Lowe, Darren Killeen, Sarah Carroll, Eoin Barton, Bertie Brosnan, Karl Gordon, Shane Fox, Gerry Wade, Matthew Radford and Graham Ward. Coming Soon.”
Blogged by Sarah on April 14th, 2010 in Uncategorized
For a while now I’ve been meaning to write about a newish venture and great new asset to the Independent Filmmakers of Ireland, Underground Cinema, developed and co-ordinated by Dave Byrne. Dave has successfully run Bluemoon Theatre Company for many years and I came to know him when I had the pleasure of working on one of their productions in 2008.
Last year however, Dave changed course from the theatre company with the introduction of his new project, a monthly screening night in the Kingston Hotel Dun Laoghaire for Irish Short films, Underground Cinema. The idea behind Underground is to air the many wonderful independent Irish Shorts shot throughout the year that very often don’t get the screening time they deserve. Dave has opened the doors to anything which is sent to him, stating that any genre or convention is welcome. Over the months the screenings have also stretched to cover music videos and the occasional feature film. Another great aspect of Underground Cinema is that these monthly screenings will culminate into a nominations night in the Kingston Hotel, the Underground Film Festival in the IMC Dun Laoghaire and the Underground Cinema Awards (Black Tie Event) in Fitzpatricks Castle Hotel Killiney in September.
The whole project is ambitious to say the least and has so far had a well deserved great reaction, but this project has legs and is expanding all the time with Daves further introductions:
Underground TV (a live online showing of films with the director available for live chat afterwards)
Underground Cinema Roadshow (screenings held to a wider audience in venues throughout Ireland and the UK)
Underground Cinema Movie Marquee (a film tent appearing at various summer festivals)
Underground Cinema Movie Workshops (delivering valuable workshops in many aspects of film making)
I’m sure I’ll be writing more over the coming months about the exciting development of Underground Cinema but of course there’s much more to read about on the official Underground Cinema website and you can keep updated with the events by following on Facebook and Twitter.
It would seem auditioning with no voice isn’t such a bad thing after all. I was in a bit of a panic this week with three auditions to get to and a voice that just wasn’t co-operating. But here we are with my second role secured for the week. It’s a short film titled Guerrilla to be shot by Dunsany Productions on location in Navan, Dublin and Dundalk. It’s a futuristic war movie and judging by the size of the gun I held in audition it’s going to be an eventful shooting experience.
I will play the female lead of Jacky. She is a soldier totally dedicated to the cause she fights. She has found herself on opposite sides to a former lover, Donelly, also the father of her young son. She’s hated him ever since he left her because she was pregnant, however when presented with the situation to let him live or die what will be the outcome? (Ohhhhh suspense!)
Should begin with costume and promo shots next week and shooting week after that. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of updates as we get closer and shooting begins so stay posted.
As a founding member of The Core Dublin, I am absolutely delighted to announce the nomination for Best Costume in The Irish Times Theatre Awards for Director Rodrigo Rodrigues in our production of The Trojan Women. I played both the roles of Athena and Helen and over the course of our lengthy rehearsal period I was involved with Rodrigo in the construction of my costume. Rodrigo believes costume construction is a valid input into the creation of a character. Rodrigo worked with each actor to develop his costume ideas and defined his technique in every detail, right down to the sound a costume makes.. as he always says “the sound the costume makes is part of the script!”
Sarah Carroll as Helen of Troy, Gerard Byrne as Menelaus
A little more about how we got there:
Way back in October 2008 I responded to an add posted by Brazilian born actor/director Rodrigo Rodrigues. The add was calling for actors for an unspecified project, but it interested me so I applied. Approximately 10 actors were invited to the first meeting where Rodrigo discussed his ideas to produce something fantastic. It was vague to say the least, but I liked what I heard, I could visualise Rodrigos ideas and I felt I understood what he wanted to achieve. So here, in the basement room of Filmbase,The Core Dublin finely opened with a group of 10 actors under Rodrigo’s Direction.
“I attempted to create a group called THE CORE without success numerous times in Dublin. After meeting with Phyllis Carthy and Sarah Carroll it became possible when they believed in my form of art. Actors came and went and then Linda Teehan arrived. I’m so PROUD OFF THESE GIRLS “ (says Rodrigo Rodrigues)
Over the next year we met every Sunday for workshops. Rodrigo wanted an idea to evolve over time, he felt sometimes in Ireland the process of getting an idea to stage was too rushed. We took our time, exploring new ideas and techniques. Rodrigo used elements of Japanese dance and theatre forms such as Butoh (from Kazuo Ohno and Yoshito Ohno), Kabuki and marching. Long discussions occurred about life, politics, art, religion and the current situation of the world. From these discussions Rodrigo gradually formed his ideas and after observing the actors workshops, exercises, reactions, he came to the decision to put on a production of an ancient Greek tragedy, The Trojan Women. Our group, over the weeks had whittled down to just 3 actor members and our Director Rodrigo so we then held auditions for additional actors to fill the chorus and male roles in the play. We were also delighted to welcome actor/director Alan King (Waiting for Ikea) to the project.
The visuals of our production were of the utmost importance to Rodrigo. We spent far longer working on these elements then running lines. Rodrigo insisted on actors being involved in the construction of their own costumes and rehearsing in them from the very early stages. The costumes were made from recycled clothing, household items, accessories, cardboard or anything we could lay our hands on as long as it was free. Rodrigo had a vision for the costumes from the beginning and each cast member researched ideas to add to the mix.
Of course it was a pleasure working on the production, although it wasn’t without it’s difficulties. Overall, I was involved for over a year before we took to the stage with The Trojan Women in October 2009. It was a lengthy process, one we’re not used to in Ireland and we hit many obstacles which had to be overcome. However, in the end it all came together and we were delighted with the response to our show and sold out most nights in our two week run in Smock Alley Theatre. Of course receiving recognition for all the hard work in the form of a nomination is just music to my ears but truly well deserved by Rodrigo.
The Core Dublin will continue to strive for the highest standards in future projects. We are looking towards projects not only in theatre, but also film and television. Watch this space!!
Well I have to say I am totally delighted to have won the Best Actress category for “Covies” at the Underground Cinema Awards this year. It was a fantastic night and superbly put together down to the fine details by Dave and all the Underground team. This year marks the first Underground Awards and with Labour party leader Eamonn Gilmore speaking on the night, I felt he hit the nail on the head saying that this is the first of many years of success for Underground and what a privilege to have been part of the first one.
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