St Fiacc’s NS win ‘best script’ at Fís film awards

SIXTH-class pupils at St Fiacc’s National School, Graiguecullen scooped the award for ‘best script’ at the 20th annual Fís Film Awards in Dublin recently.

The Fís Film Awards is a short film competition for primary schools across the island of Ireland which encourages children to engage in all aspects of filmmaking, from scriptwriting and directing, to acting and editing.

The film, which was called There’s no such thing as a free lunch and took almost five months to produce, follows the plight of one pupil as he and his peers investigate who the culprit is when items begin disappearing from his lunchbox.

One of the pupils who worked on the film, Althea Byrne, said the class got the inspiration for the plot from a podcast episode about a lunch-stealing teacher.

“We got the idea for our movie from a podcast episode where a teacher kept stealing things from their pupils’ lunchboxes,” Althea explains. “We put our heads together and our teacher did a number of lessons on narrative, structure, dialogue, camera and sound.

“We created a narrative arc for our movie and my friend Elena and I helped Mr Keogh with the dialogue. Then, it was time for lights, camera and action,” she added.

Althea’s dream is to have a career in acting and she said being involved in the production of the movie helped her learn more about what is required if she wants to make that dream a reality.

“I would love to have a career in acting and I think this movie really helped me learn more about what I need to do to make this dream a reality. I’m already in the Spotlight Stage School, a space where I can act and dance for a few hours a week. I’ve also filmed some ads for TV and I’ve danced on the Late Late Toy Show.

“When I finish secondary school, I would love to continue my interests in acting and film.’’ 

Althea thanked St Fiacc’s for giving her class the opportunity to participate in the film festival and added that there is a filmmaking camp being held over the summer and the school hopes to enter two films in next year’s awards.

You can check out the film on the St Fiacc’s National School YouTube channel. There is also a behind-the-scenes video detailing how the film was made.