Gavin Fitzgerald is a veteran documentary film and series maker known for Conor McGregor Notorious (2017), Million Dollar Pigeons (2022), and Stable: The Boxing Game (2024) among others. A Trinity College graduate and current Film Production teacher at Trinity, his latest feature Lomu is premiering at this year’s Dublin International Film Festival (DIFF). The documentary surrounds the life of Jonah Lomu, a prolific New Zealand rugby player widely considered to be one of the greatest athletes in history. I sat down with Fitzgerald on a typically drizzly Dublin Friday morning to talk about all things sports, filmmaking, and masculinity. Thank you so much to him for an incredibly inspiring conversation.
Fitzgerald’s filmography demonstrates a noticeable interest in sports media, a recurring theme Lomu abides by. The documentary had been in the works since Fitzgerald first began making films. To him, Jonah Lomu was a childhood hero. He describes watching Jonah play as “like watching a superhuman… as a young boy you almost fantasize about that sense of being invincible”. Sports documentaries and media offer a chance to him to see behind that invincibility that is expected of young boys and move into something deeper. Themes of challenging masculinity reverberate in his documentaries, with Fitzgerald stating that sports are opportunities for men to express themselves in ways they wouldn’t normally be able to. Through his films, Fitzgerald hopes to get his audience to watch a “real film” and develop a masculinity that goes beyond the invisible mask men often wear. He tells me that documentaries are about “serving the story and ultimately trying to find a truth”.
Beyond Lomu’s infamous rugby notoriety, Fitzgerald portrays Lomu’s early life, focusing on the development of important aspects of his identity, particularly his Tongan culture. Interviews with Lomu’s mother and brother were essential to getting to this side of Jonah that the public often didn’t get to see. The hardest part of making the film was deciding what to cut since Lomu’s life was so fascinating. With Lomu, he toes the line between telling Lomu’s biography and educating the audience on Tongan culture, dropping little nuggets of knowledge throughout. He sees documentary as an incredibly powerful socio-cultural tool, and hopes that Lomu can “impact a sense of change and open conversations. Not just creating entertainment, but talking about real things”.
Fitzgerald also talks about the bizarre feeling that comes with having a sold out premiere at DIFF when he went to DIFF screenings throughout college simply as an attendee. If you were unlucky and missed the premiere tickets, all hope is not lost. Lomu will soon after enter theatres, alongside another project Fitzgerald says would be releasing later this year, Anum Na Mara. This is an Irish language film about Curragh racing in Connemara and explores disappearing cultures, masculinity, and intergenerational change and bonding. The practices portrayed in this film are a “powerful world to protect”; something Fitzgerald is hoping to do through the project.
To the young filmmakers out there, Fitzgerald says that self-belief and perseverance are essential to telling stories: “if you want something, you have to put it out there and you have to believe that it can happen. You can’t do nothing about it”.
