16 November 2015

Padraig Trehy’s début feature film, Shem The Penman Sings Again, will have a special screening on November 13th in The Everyman Theatre as part of this year’s Cork Film Festival. As it celebrates its 60th anniversary, the Cork Film Festival is placing particular importance on Cork filmmakers, and so this screening is fitting as Shem The Penman Sings Again was made start to finish in the Rebel County.

Cork company Pooleen Productions produced the feature, and actors Frank Prendergast and Louis Lovett lead the talent on screen. Shem is also the first feature film to be projected in the opulent surroundings of The Everyman since it ceased to be a cinema in the late 1980s, allowing guests enjoy a wonderful piece of Cork’s cinematic heritage. This screening will be particularly special as much of Shem  was actually shot in The Everyman, so guests on the night will enjoy the opportunity of viewing the film on the big screen whilst sitting on the actual film set!

Director Pádraig Trehy stated: “It was a dream come true for me to shoot a feature film in Cork - our main locations of Fota House and The Everyman Palace were made affordable and accessible by enthusiastic staff and management. The talent in the region is clearly evident on screen throughout the cast, and we had the unswerving support of a highly professional and talented local crew which ultimately enabled us to complete this ambitious project in Cork.”

Having piqued the interest of important distributors such as Film Sales Corp from New York at its world premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh in July, Shem’s release next year, to coincide with the 75th anniversary of James Joyce’s death, has been highly anticipated. As this feature is inspired by one of Joyce’s most difficult works, Finnegans Wake, this achievement is all the more impressive.

Shem creates a fictional archive of the famous friendship of writer James Joyce and extraordinary tenor John McCormack. The film connects the actual friendship of Joyce and McCormack with the relationship between Shem the Penman and Shaun the Post in Finnegans Wake through a combination of archive recordings and imaginary radio broadcasts. The merging of fantasy and reality is a key theme in the film, with clever interplay between Joyce’s real life and that of his alter ego, Shem the Penman.

Tickets for this special screening can be purchased at corkfilmfest.org and you can find out more about Shem at shemthepenman.com. Shem the Penman Sings Again was funded by Bord Scannán na hÉireann/ the Irish Film Board.