Irish Filmmaker is First with Two Films in the Festival!

Irish Filmmaker Shaun O’Connor is the first to hold the esteemed honor of having two separate films officially selected to be in the 2012 festival!

Based in Cork City in the south of Ireland, Shaun O’ Connor had been working as a full-time musician for almost ten years when in 2009 he decided to try his hand at his lifelong ambition: to make films. Less than a year later, that decision had resulted a micro budget feature film, “Steamin + Dreamin: The Grandmaster Cash Story”, (which he directed, co-wrote, shot, edited and co-composed music for). The film became a local cult hit, had two sold-out screenings in the 2009 Cork Film Festival and enjoyed a successful independent DVD release.

Since then, Shaun has been involved in various video projects, including directing a number of music videos. One of these, “Conspiracy” by the band Echogram, went on to win the award for ‘Sexiest Video’ at the 2011 Irish Music Television Awards.

Shaun forged a productive creative relationship with writer/actor Tadhg Hickey, and their short film work has received a number of awards. One of their films, “Nietzsche No. 5″, won the award for Best Comedy at the Corona
Fastnet Short Film Festival and the ‘Audience Selection’ award at the Kerry Film Festival 2011. The film is now an officially selected film at the Healdsburg International Short Film Festival in the comedy category.

Their latest short film, entitled “Uisce Beatha” (Gaelic for ‘Whiskey’ or ‘Water Of Life’) is a period piece, set in
Ireland in 1912. It will have its international festival premiere at the upcoming Healdsburg International Film Festival 2012.