Volkswagen Joe has won it's fourth award in just as many weeks by taking home the Torc Prize for Best Short Drama at the 2014 Celtic Media Festival in Cornwall.
The movie, which was based on a play written by Brendan McCann, has also picked up one of the audience awards in Chicago before winning Best Short Film at the Boston Irish Film Festival and Best Short again at the Rome Irish Film Festival. Starring Stuart Graham (Hunger, Made in Belfast, The Fall) Volkswagen Joe follows the story of a conflicted mechanic, living in a border town in Northern Ireland in 1981, who is forced to make a decision that will change his life forever. In a time of social upheaval, mistrust and religious division everyone must pick a side. Volkswagen Joe was funded through PEACE III, a European Peace & Reconciliation fund designed to improve relationships between the divided communities of Northern Ireland North and South of the border
Speaking about the movie director Brian Deane said, 'One of the big issues that we wanted to examine as filmmakers was the extreme polarizing of society that could be found all over Ireland in the 1980s. People were not only forced on to a side but also forced into opposition. In a time of great sectarian conflict and with such a deeply divided society, trying to walk that line between two factions can be almost impossible; especially when societies and groups define themselves by who and what they are against rather then celebrating who they are. These same divisions are as evident today around the world as they were in Ireland 30 years ago.'
John Delaney (Titanic, Blood & Steel), Janet Moran (Love/Hate, Breakfast on Pluto), Paddy Rocks, Matthew O Brien and Helen Roche all star in the movie alongside Graham. The movie will screen next at the Fastnet Film Festival in West Cork on the 22nd May with a Q & A afterwards.
Volkswagen Joe from Eamonn G Cleary on Vimeo.
