This film was created for the What's the Story short film competition at the 2024 Rathmullan Film Festival. Sinéad Gallagher used archive footage as inspiration for her original song. Sinéad's entry won first prize in the competition.
Here are Sinéad's thoughts and reflections on her project:
"My experience of working with the archives was an interesting process. On first look I was struck by the beauty and honesty of the films, I was drawn to the sounds, people's voices and accents and the richness and musicality within them. I had a few ideas that I tried out initially but quickly learned I did not have adequate skills with sound editing so I looked again and again at the films, moreso to the ones I was particularly attracted to, trusting an idea would come. The more I looked, the more I could hear, see and understand what was going on and what might have been going on beyond what was shown. I started to connect with a few of the people and their stories, especially Mrs Campbell, which obviously was where I landed. I was impressed by her hair and her fine coat and her calm and collected demeanor in the face of what must have been horrible for her. I found I was equally impressed with her as a human as I was with Amelia Earhart and I felt it important to celebrate that too. I am lucky to be connected in my real life with many people who are ordinary heroes. The subject came up alot during my time on this project in conversation, especially among many of my women friends who are particularly good at berating themselves and all too often blind to the grit and graft required to carry out plenty of their lives ordinary yet heroic things. The whole process helped me personally to readjust and rebalance my attitude around how, who, what and why we admire and revere."
Sinead's film was the winner of the 2024 Rathmullan Film Festival's What's the Story? short film competition.