It's not every day you get to meet an Oscar winning director so as you can imagine, it was with great pleasure that I got to sit down with filmmaker James Marsh. Those of you who know your stuff will be familiar with Marsh as an auteur in his own right. While his focus has remained largely on documentary film making since his career began - he is the helmer behind the world renowned Man on Wire (which won him an Oscar in 2008) and 2011's Project Nim - Marsh has also been known to flex his feature filmmaking muscles from time to time. This week, Marsh is in town to promote his forthcoming IRA thriller featuring a predominantly Irish cast, Shadow Dancer.
Set against Belfast's political backdrop in the 1990s, Shadow Dancer tells the gripping story of Collette McVeigh - a mother, a sister and a daughter - who once identified as a participant in the IRA, faces the choice of spending the next twenty years in an English jail or turning informant for the MI5 with the promise of her son's protection.
I caught up with Marsh to talk about the pressures associated with a movie centred on such a raw piece of modern history, his outsanding and predominantly Irish cast - among which Domhnall Gleeson, Aiden Gillen, Brid Brennan and David Wilmot are included - and his satisfying experience of making Man on Wire.
You can listen to our conversation here:
Shadow Dancer hits cinemas tomorrow, Friday 24th of August. Click here for Gav's four star review.
