Private Project

Eggs and Soldiers - Proof of concept short narrative film for Feature screenplay titled We're the Kids in America

A single Irish Dad forgets the tree on christmas eve. Ned the older son's humanity is challenged when he risks everything to give his younger brother Marco a real Irish Christmas.

  • Imelda O'Reilly
    Director
    Bricks, Beds and Sheep's Heads, S.O.C.K.S., Hot Cross Buns, Lilly in the Woods, The Seamonster & the Milk Thistle
  • Imelda O'Reilly
    Writer
    Same as above
  • Fazinate Films
    Producer
    Bricks, Beds and Sheep's Heads, Hot Cross Buns, Lilly in the Woods,
  • Runtime:
    20 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    March 10, 2016
  • Production Budget:
    20,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Red
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Imelda O'Reilly

Imelda O’Reilly is an Irish born transnational filmmaker, poet and film scholar. Her work is known for exploring themes of identity, exile and longing. She is also a published poet and playwright. Her award winning short films have been screened at film festivals internationally around the world, including International Film Festival de Creteil, WorldFest Houston International Film Festival, Rhode Island International Film Festival, Cinequest VR Festival, DOC NYC and the Black Maria Film Festival.

As a commissioned writer on Song For New York with Mabou Mines her work was developed through the Sundance Theater Lab and New York Theater Workshop. She did writing residences at Vassar College, Bard College and UCross Foundation to name a few. She had two of her plays produced at the CSV in Manhattan by Deadalus Theater Company titled Fazinate and Emilita and the Fairy Glen. Her work was featured in 2022 as part of Mabou Mine's 50th Anniversary. She is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to Morocco where her film Bricks, Beds and Sheep’s Heads was a Regional Finalist for the Student Academy Awards.

Other grants include New York Foundation for the Arts, New York Women in Film, The Irish Arts Council, Culture Ireland, The City University of New York, and The Critical Language Enhancement Award.

She is currently developing three feature films. Beneath the Boy’s Cry, an Irish thriller and has Barbara DeFina attached as Executive Producer. This screenplay has also been a finalist for the Sundance Screenwriters lab. She is in development on a feature film titled We're the Kids in America that was an Official Selection for L'Atélier Cinéfondation, Cannes Film Festival in 2018.

Imelda just completed post production on a new narrative film titled Suspicious Minds. She has a collection of poems titled I Wake In Half Dream published by Lapwing Press. Other publications include Lotherian Poetry Journal, Galway Review and Prompt Press. She performs her poetry with Composers Concordance at various venues including Birdland and The Bitter End. Her fiction appears in an anthology of Irish fiction titled Shenanigans published by Scepter in the UK.

She has an MFA in film from Columbia University. Imelda spent three years in Singapore as an Arts Professor in the graduate film program for New York University under artistic director Oliver Stone. Prior to NYU she taught at Barnard College, Hunter College and the School for Visual Arts. She is currently an Associate Professor at JMU. She is a resident of the Westbeth in Manhattan.

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Director Statement

We're the Kids in America is a feature length screenplay based on the short film titled Eggs and Soldiers. The feature screenplay is a triptych of three generations of Irish fathers and sons, Ireland in the 1950's and 1980's and New York in 2016.

One of the lines that touches at the core of We’re the Kids in America is when Ned one of the characters says to his Dad;

“Da, you love the bones of us, it’s a pity you haven’t the foggiest how to show it.”

This idea of contradiction in demonstrating love is an emotionally complex issue. The screenplay explores a theme to uncover a deeper understanding of human nature. To fully comprehend unspoken gestures, cruel behavior and hidden emotional contradictions one must reflect upon the environment an individual has been nurtured in and what sociological circumstances contributed to the behavior of that individual. The old nature versus nurture argument. Often the culture, church and state play a role in shaping an individual’s behavior.

I create stories to uncover a deeper awareness and empathy for the human condition. The very act of creating helps birth a sorrow and give it meaning and dimension within our own lives. This is why I chose to look at three generations of Irish fathers and sons to contextualize in a sociological way, how families hand down dysfunction from one generation to another.

I wrote a triptych with three time periods, Ireland in the 1950’s and 1980’s and New York in 2016. The intent is to uncover emotional truths and find the poetic truth behind the images in terms of the storytelling aesthetic.

What are the implicit meanings behind the external landscapes that the characters inhabit? The story is centered around Christian a young Irish teenager who is the first in his family to “get out” and emigrate to America. It suggests a hope that he will transcend the cycle of abuse within his family. Unfortunately, he flounders and when he fathers two son’s it becomes clearer that perhaps it will take another generation to break the cycle of dysfunction.

Through this slow process of revealing and concealing anger, sadness, brutality and kindness in behavior the intent is to uncover the fragile tenderness and vulnerability that exists within the human condition. Oddly anger can have positive and negative outcomes but often this dualism in character and identity can contradict and hold us back, but it is these contradictions that ultimately make us human.

I am a female writer/director writing a male story. This film will explore the themes of forgiveness and the sins between fathers and sons. I am writing from an empathetic place in order to understand the complexities of countries that have been colonized and their relationship to the land and repeated patterns of domestic abuse. I am interested in the theme of culpability, how can a culture, country, church, state and elements of a diaspora and colonization impact a country’s self-esteem.

This film began with wanting to capture a silent explosion in the life of a first-generation Irish American teenage boy named Ned. As an Irish immigrant I wanted to create an un-romanticized immigrant story. Another inspiring image I had was of a teenage boy who couldn’t afford a tree on Christmas Eve.

During Christmas time when tensions are high and people tend to have more to drink, invariably arguments can break out. I am interested in how joyful situations can change emotionally at a moment’s notice. There is an image in the screenplay when Christian encounters a herd of sheep he stops and lets them pass. When Jimmy his father encounters a herd of sheep, he throws rocks at them. I am interested in cinema that finds a poetic truth behind the images. Like Martin Scorsese, I want to reveal characters emotionally through their environment, not always relying on dialogue to communicate story.

I want a gritty aesthetic for my film. I want to create three different visual styles for the different time periods. I intend to choreograph with my cinematographer tracking shots of the three main characters. The camera will alternate between handheld camera with wider spherical lenses to show the less stable environment. At the end of the film when Christian chooses to not go into a bar and instead spend it with his son the audience has access to what lead him to his decision and how in small ways he is trying to change. The cinematography will reinforce the narrative storytelling.

These are the emotional truths I strive to uncover in my work. I am referencing the cinema of moral discontent and also the melodramatic tropes of realism. The internal emotional world of the characters is communicated through the use of the camera as narrator. This film is communicating the poetics of change, it is a love song to family and to a homeland that suffered through colonization. Reference films include In the Name of the Father, Terrence Davis, Distant Voices Still Lives and Gary Oldman’s Nil by Mouth.

We’re the Kids in America builds directly on my short film titled Eggs and Soldiers. It also completes a body of work about my homeland, Ireland. The aesthetic style is more kitchen sink drama, gritty realism as opposed to magical realism in my most recent short Suspicious Minds. However, I do like the idea of continuing my exploration with experimentation within film language. In terms of theme this screenplay delves deeper into the dramatic question of what is beneath dysfunctional behavior? This grant would assist me in approaching making my first feature length film.