Foróige helps Castletownbere film fans to get in the picture

FUTURE Steven Speilbergs in Beara have been honing their filmmaking skills in a project run by their local Foróige Club.

A partnership between Beara Foróige, Scoil Phobail Bhéara, the Cork Film Centre and Cork Young Film Makers has provided a group of young people with the opportunity to learn film making skills produce their own short documentary film People of Beara. 

Tina O’Callaghan, a youth worker based with Foróige in Castletownbere explains how the project came about: ‘Foróige have previously held film making workshops  and we were looking to see how we could develop these further.  With funding from Cork County Council we were able to undertake this project with the Cork Film Centre and Cork Young Film makers.’

Along with her colleague Gwen O’Donovan, Tina works with Beara Foróige who provides youth group activities during the school year and also a summer programme of events. The organisation has had a presence in Beara since 2000 and now has four Foróige clubs in townlands throughout the peninsula. 

Tina outlined how the project was launched in September 2019 when the Cork Film Centre gave a presentation to Transition Year students at Scoil Phobail Bhéara. 

‘A number of young people signed up on the day, and it was decided to make a short film People of Beara which would be a snapshot of the people living n Beara in 2019,’ she said. 

Their first film production meeting was, she says, a brainstorming session where they decided what they wanted to achieve with their film, who would be featured and how they would go about it. They were supported in all aspects of the production of their film by the Cork Film Centre and Cork Young Filmmakers. The Cork Film Centre has been bringing filmmaking skills to young people throughout Cork for the past 20 years while  Cork Young Filmmakers offers a filmmaking workshop programme funded by Cork County Council.

Filming has now finished on the documentary and it is currently being edited It will be screened at the First Cut Youth Film Festival in Youghal  in March 2020 and at the 2020 Beara Film Fest . The group also hope to make it available online.  

Tina says everyone is delighted at how the project has evolved: ‘Overall it’s been a great experience for everyone involved and we hope could lead to some taking up a career in film.’