Belturbet's Volkswagen Joe revs into pre-production
Seamus Enright
The screen adaptation of Brendan McCann’s play ‘Volkswagen Joe’ is currently motoring through pre-production phase.
The recent award of €30,000 in Peace III funding has allowed the Belturbet Dramatic Society to realise their ambition to see the local writer's play, which reached the All-Ireland Drama Finals in 1995 adapted for the screen.
Executive producer and member of the Belturbet Dramatic Society Claire McGlade told The Anglo-Celt that they hope to begin filming on both sides of the border in the coming months.
“We’re absolutely thrilled to be so near to filming at this stage,” enthused Claire. “Brendan’s plays, and of course he himself as a producer and director, have been the mainstay of our society for the past 20 to 30 years, so we’re absolutely delighted and it's very fitting that one of his plays, especially this because it had reached the All-Ireland Finals, is now being given a screen treatment.
“It's extremely exciting for us as a dramatic society, but it's also something that will bring loads of energy and vitality, which is badly needed in all of our small towns, to Belturbet and the surrounding areas.”
Set in the ‘80s and centring around a local car mechanic who finds himself in a challenging cross-community dilemma, ‘Volkswagen Joe’ is to be filmed as as a half-hour drama for the film festival circuit and television.
The society have recruited Eamonn Cleary and Brian Deane from Cork, and Dublin-based TechnoWolfe Films to take the lead in directing and editing the film. Meanwhile, Belturbet’s own Kevin McCann of Maccana Teoranta, who produced the award-winning ‘Testing Time for Teddy Boy’ has been brought on board as Producer.
Kevin is understandably passionate about the project, not least because it's his father’s work being adapted. But also because it deals with the often over-looked harsh realities of living in a divided community.
“My father’s work involves the border because he has lived it. He grew up in Belturbet and his father came from Fermanagh and mother from Leitrim. My parents lived for several years in Enniskillen.
'He began teaching and my mother was head of the radiography department in the Erne Hospital. Shortly after a bomb destroyed their apartment block in Enniskillen, they moved back across the border to Belturbet in the ‘70s.
“His first play, produced with the newly formed Belturbet Drama Society won the All Ireland Drama Award. When he became vice-principal in Loreto College, he dedicated his career to education and later became the first lay principal there. So the border and the community there has informed his life and his art.”
Kevin remembers when ‘Volkswagen Joe’ was shown on stage at the Belturbet Palais with Damien O’Brien directing the compelling play, though he has no doubt it's time it made its long-awaited cinematic transition.
“Damien is a great director and it was selected for the All Ireland finals. Now it's time for a new screen version and we’re all looking forward to it,” Kevin said.
Casting for the Volkswagen Joe will take place in Cavan, Fermanagh and Tyrone in the coming weeks and TechnoWolfe and the Belturbet Dramatic Society are looking for anybody, experienced or inexperienced, young and old willing to apply for big and small roles and to appear in the film.
Director Brian Deane, whose previous film won the Spike Lee award at Cannes Film Festival told The Celt “at the moment we’re very much focusing on working out where and when we will be filming.
'We’re checking out a number of locations on both sides of the border, in Cavan and Fermanagh and elsewhere too, it's very important to us that we are able to include as much of the region as we can in filming. To do that we’re also trying to get as as many of people as possible involved. We see this very much as a community project that will be worked with the community, through the community, on both sides of the border.
Dates and times for casting sessions will be soon announced, as will the locations of where they are to take place. For more details contact, Belturbet Dramatic Society, Erne Hill, Belturbet, Co. Cavan or email belturbetdrama@hotmail.com