A film produced by and starring Trinity students will be shown in a prestigious British horror film festival later this week. ‘The Farm’, which was filmed in the summer of 2008, was directed by Film Studies graduate Dáire McNab, and produced by Postgraduate students Robert Kearns and Simone Cameron-Coen. Its cast included Cathal Reilly and Hugh Sullivan, both of whom were Students’ Union Sabbatical Officers last year. The editor of this very paper also appears in the film, playing the fictional role of a drug-dealing lunatic. The film was made for €11,000, which was raised privately. It contains elements of dark comedy, as well as a couple of lengthy torture sequences which have led to some dubbing it ‘torture porn’.
The Abertoir Festival, where ‘The Farm’ will be shown on Friday evening, is established as one of the most important up-and-coming horror festivals in Europe. Films being screened this year include works by both Takashi Miike (director of the notorious ‘Audition’ and ‘Ichi the Killer’) and Michael Mann (‘Public Enemies’ and ‘Heat’). ‘The Farm’ had its Irish premiere back in September at the Tipperary Film Festival, where it won the prize for Best Young Director.
Dáire McNab, director of ‘The Farm’, graduated from Trinity in 2007. He was a committee member of the Filmmakers Society, and made several short films while in college. One of these, ‘Nirvana’, won first place in the National Student Film Festival.
McNab, Kearns and Cameron-Coen are currently in pre-production on their second feature film ‘The Gingerbread Men’, a dark comedy based upon McNab’s own college experiences, which will be shot next summer. McNab describes the film as being “like Superbad, but less funny.”
