After Ed Sheeran, director Murray sets his sights on the O'Donovan brothers

A SONGWRITING documentary featuring Ed Sheeran is gaining accolades for Murray Cummings, a former student of Schull Community College – and now he wants to work with the O’Donovan brothers.

Murray, who lived in Baltimore before moving to Dublin about 15 years ago, studied for a degree in film making and media, and is now a director in Brighton in the UK.

Songwriter, his new documentary, is unusual in that Murray travelled extensively with his cousin – the superstar Ed Sheeran – and managed to capture him in the creative act of writing songs.

The feature-length documentary premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February, and was subsequently invited to the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, but the really big news is that the film has now been released by Apple Music in LA.

Murray’s proud parents, as well as his brother Billy – who together with William Bean contributed to the making of the documentary through their own film company Dog Day Media – told The Southern Star: ‘Murray is over-joyed. It is a really strong creative documentary and some have even described it as ground-breaking.’

The footage is definitely intimate in the behind-the-scenes look at superstar Ed, but it primarily focuses on his gigs at Wembley.

Speaking from LA, Murray told The Southern Star: ‘It feels so weird to go from working on laptops with my brothers in Skibbereen to releasing a movie in Hollywood in just a couple of years. 

‘The buzz around the film has been fantastic and I’m looking forward to the next one … I’d love to do something with the O’Donovan brothers, if they’re up for it.’