Small Engine Repair

Written and directed by Niall Heery, "Small Engine Repair" stars Iain Glen, Steven Mackintosh and Lawrence Kinlan. Its first industry showing will be at the London Screenings in June, with the Irish premiere following at the Galway Film Festival on July 14, 2006. International Sales are through Moviehouse Entertainment.

Synopsis: Doug, an aspiring country singer, has spent his life as a loser in a non descript small town with nobody believing in his heartbreaking voice and talent as a musician. His wife has left him and only his best friend believes in him. But he has one last chance to make it…..

Writer/Director, Niall Heery
Niall joined the industry in 1999 as an assistant script editor on Fox Networks "Mystic Knights of Tir na N-Og" and their feature film "Saint Patrick, an Irish Legend". He subsequently worked as Head of Development for The Good Film Company in Dublin.

He wrote and directed the short films "The Edge of Defeat" and "Summit". "Summit" won numerous awards on the European festival circuit including the 2003 Galway Film Fleadh. Music promos directed include "Wired to the Moon" and "Death of a DJ" by The Revs. "Wired to the Moon" was nominated for best video at the 2002 Meteor Music Awards. Television work includes "The Devil in Disguise," a TV series on world champion poker player Dave 'The Devilfish' Elliot, for Sky Television.

Niall was the 'Technical Assistant to the Director', Antoine Fuqua, on Jerry Bruckheimer's "King Arthur". He has recently written and directed his first feature film "Small Engine Repair" starring Iain Glen and Steven Mackintosh.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

Small Engine Repair is a comedy drama with a blackly comic tone and a rites of passage element. It is essentially a story about the meaning and value of friendship and what happens when the limits of friendship are tested.

The film revolves around a country and western singer, in a community semi-obsessed with country music and Middle-American culture in general. Their lives are full of broken dreams and so they’ve imported this American ethos into their community, their idea of the American dream. This dictates the style of the film, discarding the stereotypical rural Irish aesthetic and contrasting the chaotic energetic world of these Truck Drivers, Shit Kickers and Pond Life Losers with the loneliness, vacuity and stagnation of small town life.

Although set in rural Ireland, the film discards the stereotypical rural aesthetic of livestock, green fields and picturesque scenery etc. for a grittier landscape; incorporating battered pick-up trucks, machinery, billboards and neon lights.

Video: The Making of "Small Engine Repair" on Cineuropa

CASTING

Small Engine Repair is a mainstream comedy drama about a man who goes from small town zero to country and western musical hero. Director Niall Heery describes the film as “a 'buddy movie'. It's a film about friendship, about... a bunch of guys whose lives haven't really worked out the way they might have hoped they would have. But…yeah, I guess it's a kind of aspiring... about a guitar teacher who has aspirations to be a Country singer, you know, and he gets a small amount of success, and it's just the way his friends deal with it.”

Guitar teacher and aspiring Country singer Doug, played by Iain Glen, is an odd-job man in his 40s who is cuckolded by his wife. He is a comical character symbolising the powerlessness of any of the film’s characters to act in any significant way. In Glen’s own words, Doug is “quite, sort of hapless; he doesn’t really know what’s best for him; he’s too concerned about everyone else’s welfare really to consider his own and that’s often, I was saying to Niall sort of quite early on; one of the real gifts of the role is that sometimes, you know, the straight people are the good people in stories are often quite neutral and quite dull; quite sort of characterless, but he’s written a very you know, a very complex man I think who has many different sides to him but is basically a good soul really, he’s just you know, a good soul…”

CAST BIOS

Actor, Iain Glen
Iain Glen found his love for acting while attending the University of Aberdeeen in Scotland where friends encouraged him to try out for the school’s drama society. He went on to attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art where he earned the prestigious Bancroft Gold Medal in his final year. From there he gained prominence for his work in theatre, television and film, his first roles being that of an American researcher in Kenya in the Dian Fossey biopic Gorillas in the Mist and the lover of a parliamentarian in Paris By Night (both 1988). His more recent credits include Tara Road, Kingdom of Heaven, Song for a Raggy Boy, Resident Evil, Lara Croft: Tombraider and Beautiful Creatures. He has a son, Finlay Glen.

Actor, Steven Mackintosh
Steven Mackintosh first appeared on the London stage at age 12. He went on to make his film debut in the Joe Orton biopic Prick up Your Ears (1987) as Simon Ward. Since then he has appeared in many film and television roles including The Jacket, The Mother, England Expects and Care, for which he won the BAFTA Cymru Best Actor award in 2000 and the Royal Television Society Program Award Best Actor award in 2001.

Actor, Stuart Graham
Stuart Graham has appeared in numerous theatre, television and film roles. His theatre credits include The Force of Change directed by Robert Delamare - Royal Court, The Carthiginians - Lyric Theatre, Belfast, As the Beast Sleeps directed by Conall Morrison – Abbey Theatre, and In a Little World of our Own Directed by Robert Delamare – The Foundry, Donmar Warehouse. Among his television credits are Discovering Ancient Egypt, directed by Ferdie Fairfax, BBC; Steel River Blues Directed by Tim Dowd, Graeme Harper, ITV; The Commander III Directed by Michael Whyte – ITV; and Omagh Directed by Pete Travis, Channel 4. Some of his film credits are Song for a Raggy Boy directed by Aisling Walsh, Subotica Ent.; Misery Harbour directed by Nils Gaup, Motlys A/S; The Boxer directed by Jim Sheridan, Hell’s Kitchen; Fatal Extraction directed by Colin McKeown, Besom Productions; and Michael Collins directed by Neil Jordan.

Actor, Gary Lydon
Gary was born in London but later moved to his father's hometown of Wexford in the Republic of Ireland. There he joined the Wexford Theatre Co-op, performing in plays by Sam Sheperd, Dario Fo and Joe Orton. He went on to make his London debut in 1988 playing Jimmy Brady in A Handful of Stars (1993) (TV), and went on to perform in Billy Roche's Wexford Trilogy on stage and television. He has also appeared in The Last September, Ordinary Decent Criminal, Sunday and Sinners.

Actress, Kathy Kiera Clarke
Born in Belfast, Kathy is a founder member of Marrillac Theatre Company. Her most recent theatre credits include Brilliant Traces, Low Level Panic, The Coronation Voyage and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth for Prime Cut Productions at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast. Kathy was nominated for the RNT/Ian Charleson Awards Best Actress for the title role of Medea for The Glasgow Citizens Theatre. Most recently she won critical acclaim for her portrayal of Ophelia in The Abbey Theatre Dublin and Lyric Belfast’s production of Hamlet. Her television credits include Bernadette in the series Head Over Heals for Carlton, Una in Pulling Moves, Elizabeth Gibson in Omagh and Jennifer Gaghan in Silent Witness, all for the BBC and Sinead in the mini-series Proof 2. Her film work includes Last Legs directed by Amy Jenkins, Hard Nut, Mad About Harry, The Most Fertile Man in Ireland, and was nominated “Best Actress” at the Irish Film & TV Awards 2003 for her role in Paul Greengrass’ Bloody Sunday. She played the leading role of Nicola in Solid Air.

Actor, Laurence Kinlan
Laurence Kinlan was born in Dublin. His first role was playing the lead in Alan Bleasdale’s drama, Soft Sand Blue Sea for Channel 4. His film features include Angela’s Ashes, Saltwater, Everlasting Piece, Last Days in Dublin, On The Nose directed by David Caffrey and Country directed by Kevin Liddy. He appeared in the series The Bill directed by Pip Broughton and was recently seen as one of the main characters in RTE’s new series On Home Ground. Theatre appearances include the role of Leonard in On Such As We, directed by Wilson Milam at the Abbey Theatre. Laurence will soon appear in a major new feature film Ned Kelly as Dan Kelly alongside Heath Ledger, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush and Naomi Watts in a Universal Pictures/Working Title production directed by Gregor Jordan. Laurence has also recently finished shooting Veronica Guerin directed by Joel Schumacher, The Halo Effect directed by Lance Daly, and Intermission directed by John Crowley. Laurence recently completed filming on two Irish feature films: 'Henry' in Boy Eats Girl directed by Stephen Bradley and 'Irwin' in Breakfast on Pluto directed by Neil Jordan.

Actor, Tom Jordan Murphy
Tom Jordan Murphy’s theatre work includes 44 Sycamore (Red Kettle Theatre Co); Upstarts (Riverbank Theatre); The Hostage (Tivoli Theatre); Operation Easter (Calypso). His television and film work includes Adam and Paul (Lenny Abrahamson), The General (John Boorman); Michael Collins (Neil Jordan); The Bill (ITV); Fair City (RTE); Pure Mule (Charlie McCarthy, Declan Recks), for which he won the Best Actor in Television Award at the Irish Film and Television Awards. Also, in 1998 Tom received a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Featured Role for his role in the Broadway production of Druid Theatre Company’s The Beauty Queen of Leenane.

KEY PERSONNEL BIOS

Producer Tristan Orpen Lynch
Tristan Orpen Lynch has been involved in the Irish film and music industry since 1989.

With the production company he founded, Subotica Films Ltd, he produced the feature film production of Night Train starring John Hurt and Brenda Blethyn with J&M Entertainment, London completed in early 1999. Night Train, for which John Hurt won the best actor award at the Verona film festival, has screened to excellent reviews in many film festivals including Toronto, Cairo, Palm Springs, Brussels and Moscow and has been released in many countries worldwide

In 1999 he formed Subotica Entertainment with partner Dominic Wright. In 2000 the company produced David Caffrey’s On The Nose, a comedy starring Robbie Coltrane, Dan Aykroyd and Brenda Blethyn. It also produced the eight part period drama Random Passage directed by John N Smith starring Colm Meany. The company is has also completed a major documentary on Ireland’s national theatre The Abbey Theatre for the centenary in 2004. Subotica’s latest feature is Song For A Raggy Boy starring Aidan Quinn and Iain Glen, which received an extended standing ovation at its world premiere in Sundance 2003 where it opened the World Cinema Section. It has been a major festival hit winning 9 awards internationally, including Best Film at the Copenhagen Film Festival. Their most recent production is the 4-part TV Drama, Proof, which aired in January 2004 with unprecedented ratings for broadcaster RTE. The company is developing a slate of feature films and television projects.

Tristan was nominated Irish ‘Producer on the Move’ at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival by European Film Promotions. He has lead International Irish Film Industry trade missions in conjunction with Enterprise Ireland and is a member of the Film Makers Ireland film subcommittee. Tristan is also a board member of the Irish Film Board.

Producer Dominic Wright
Dominic Wright has worked in film and television as producer and actor since graduating from Oxford University in 1987 with a degree in English.

He developed his first film in 1997/8, while working on the series A Week in Politics for Channel 4 Television. This was the Spanish/Irish co-production Innisfree directed by José Luis Guerín, which Dominic then production-managed and appeared in. The film was shot in the West of Ireland in 1998 and was selected as Spain's Best Film by a Debuting Director for the Berlin Film Festival in 1989. In 1991 Dominic was UK Production Manager for the Spanish feature Beltenebros, directed by Pilar Miro and starring Terence Stamp and Patsy Kensit. The film won awards at Berlin and San Sebastian Film Festivals. He also acted in the short Paul Finds A Suitcase and produced and directed dance and fashion promos. In 1993 he worked on Pilar Miro's feature The Bird Of Happiness which was selected for Director’s Fortnight in Cannes 1993.

From 1992-4 he worked with top film financiers Film Trustees in London where pictures included The Crying Game; The Sheltering Sky and Naked Lunch.

After co-producing the feature film Spaghetti Slow in Dublin in 1995 he moved to Ireland and began working with Subotica Films in 1996. From 1996-7 he also played the lead in the short film The Photographer's Husband and Mr Martin in Ionesco's The Bald Prima Donna and a London detective in RTE's Glenroe.

He completed the critically acclaimed film Night Train with Subotica Films in 1998 as Associate Producer. The film stars John Hurt and Brenda Blethyn and was directed by Irish producer/director John Lynch. In 1998 he also played small roles in the feature films Mad About Mambo and the BBC period drama series Aristocrats, directed by David Caffrey and a short film The Hunters Club, directed by Andrew O'Malley.

In 1999 he formed Subotica Entertainment with partner Tristan Orpen Lynch.

Director of Photography, Tim Fleming
Tim came to Cinematography through painting, sculpture, photography and an interest in cinema and visual language. Choosing to work his way through the camera department he has honed his craft by working with many brilliant Cinematographers. His credits include, Once, directed by John Carney starring Glen Hansard and Marqueta Irgloba; Turning Green directed by John G. Hoffman and Michael Aimette starring Alessandro Nivolo, Timothy Hutton and Colm Meany; Cinegael Paradiso, directed by Robert Quinn and winner of the Best Feature Documantary at the Galway Film Fleadh, Best Feature Documentary at the Boston Film Festival and Spirit of The Festival award at the Celtic Film Festival; The Last Time directed by Conor Horgan and winner of the Jameson Best Irish Short Award and the UPI Best Director Award at the Cork Film Festival, the International FICC Jury Special Mention at the Krakow Film Festival, Runner up for the TAPS UK Writer of the Year, the Audience Award at the CineGael Festival in Montreal, 2nd Prize & Best First Irish Short at the Galway Film Fleadh and Special Commendation at the Kerry Film Festival.