Distraction is the one good side effect of procrastination. When you have a big, impossible project, there’s nothing like a bunch of small attainable tasks to help avoid it. Right now, I’m beginning the slow process of animation production on The Babysitter, a mixed media short I directed last year with the help of Shoot Cut Grade. So far I’ve learned how to make puppets (thanks to local legends Studio9). Currently I’m working with my old friend Dermot Byrne to build an animation stage. The brilliantly talented puppet maker and 3D designer Holly Angle has agreed to create the central character. But this is a slow burn project, sure to take months more at least.

I’m also at work on the rough structure and prep for a zero budget feature, inspired amongst other things by the films of my friend and collaborator, the Filipino-Swiss writer / director Jean-Michelle Brawand. Despite it’s inherently punk, lowfi nature, this too will take time.

In the meantime I’ve been back making shorts. Looking back, it boggles my mind how few actual short films I’ve finished. For years I was sidetracked making music videos or working on other projects less close to my heart. I’ve spent months at a time chasing funding for projects that needed it. Writing features and shorts that may never be made. Breaking my heart to impress assessors I will never meet and whose preferences I can neither estimate nor influence. Breaking the bad news to actors who believed in those films as much as I did. Waiting for permission. Thanks to Kino, Fanvid, and the many inspiring filmmakers I’ve met in Dublin and Berlin, I’m back at it – making the films I can make, with or without a budget. I’ve completed four wee film projects so far this year (and one big one, which I’ll announce when the time is right).

The first of these ‘Benediction‘, screened at Fanvid in June. It’s a found footage film, an effort to wordlessly explore the dark dynamic of my own childhood environment.

‘Good Boys‘ , which I selfishly programmed at the recent Fanvid Berlin event, documents a conversation between Jean-Michel Brawand, and the Swedish actor/ director Ivan Babinchek – both of whom live and create work in Berlin. The film is a frank, often funny, occasionally foul discussion of male desire and frustration. Featuring footage of the incredible Berlin based drag artist Juwelia Soraya.

‘What is lost can never be found’ is a collaboration with the instrument builder and composer Ed Devane, with commentary from the 9th century poet Cynewulf. The film documents an experimental music event, in the style of a found footage horror – exploring fractured relationships between sound, place and image.

Finally ‘We saw you from across the bar‘, is a sweet, lowkey guerilla short, following a couples first attempt at non monogamy. It was devised and shot at the latest Kino Dublin event, this last weekend. Behind the camera was the ever brilliant Ismael Diarra, who shot last years short melodrama Intimacy. The film stars Emma Jayne Devereux, Marina Šunjić and Saskia Corleis.

Due to the achingly slow nature of festival submissions, and their insistence on premiere status, these films won’t be public for quite a while. But if you’d like to privately view (or even better, programme) any of them – get in touch.