E-mail

Donal Gallery shines in breakout role in new Irish black comedy 'Turning Green'

Ireland is no country for young men

CAHIR O'DOHERTY

Irish Voice Arts Editor

Published Wednesday, October 14, 2009, 3:31 PM

Updated Wednesday, October 14, 2009, 3:45 PM

Vote now - Buzz this up!

Read more: Ireland, Entertainment, Movies, Michael Aimette, Colm Meaney, United States, John Hofmann, Celebrity News, Movie Reviews, The Irish Voice

Donal Gallery has no time at all for dear old Ireland in “Turning Green”

Ireland has some jarring inconsistencies when it comes to morality. Drunkenness, gambling and violence are all tolerated by turning a blind eye, but try to sell a magazine containing pictures of naked women and watch your local town go nuts. (Sure, you could argue that it’s exactly the same here in the U.S., but isn’t it always easier to laugh at another culture?)

In the upcoming feature film “Turning Green,” Donal Gallery stars in a breakout role as a young man who hates Ireland so much he’ll do whatever it takes to get out. Trapped in what he considers to be a sexless country full of Old Biddies and Holy Joes, young James spends his days in the 1970s being rebuffed by the local girls and fantasizing about consenting American ones.

James, you see, has an ace up his sleeve. He was born in America and can’t wait to return.

The dark comedy written and directed by Michael Aimette and John G. Hofmann (both have American and Irish passports) was originally inspired by an observation that Aimette made on one of his earliest trips to the country in the l980s.

“Hey,” he told himself, “there’s no porn here.”

Upon further investigation, he learned that magazines containing nudity were illegal in Ireland right up until the late 1990s. That simple fact was the original inspiration that led to the final film.

“We’re both Irish citizens,” Aimette tells the IrishCentral’s sister publication the Irish Voice. “My parents grew up in Brooklyn and we’re both three-quarters Irish and one-quarter something else – in my case one-quarter German, in John’s case one-quarter French.

“I’m really close to my family in Donegal and they encouraged me to come over. I wanted to move to Ireland for a while and write there so I went to Galway. I got my passport in 1997 and it was a really cool thing to get. On one of my earlier trips to Ireland I was amazed to discover there was no porn in the country.”

Although the one time lack of girlie magazines in Ireland allowed them to score some funny points about Irish hypocrisy in the film, the idea itself was only a means to an end.

“It could have been selling guns to the IRA,” Aimette says. “Or we could have had him selling drugs to an unsuspecting youth. But we hoped to create something a little funnier, so we settled on a kid selling soft-core girlie mags on the black market to buy an air ticket back to the states.”

1 2 3 Next page >

Vote now - Buzz this story up!

RELATED ARTICLES
RELATED TOPICS

E-mail

Be the first to make a comment.

RELATED ARTICLES
RELATED TOPICS

MOST READ
MOST E-MAILED

Become a fan of IrishCentral.com on Facebook

The Irish movies industry has grown somewhat in recent years thanks partly to the promotion of the sector by The Irish Film Board and the introduction of heavy tax breaks. Some of the most successful Irish movies include The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), Intermission (2001), Man About Dog (2004), Michael Collins (1996), Angela's Ashes (1999), The Commitments (1991) and Once (2007). In 2005 a Jameson Whiskey-sponsored poll selected the top 10 Irish movies: 1. The Commitments (1991), 2. My Left Foot (1989), 3. In the Name of the Father (1993), 4. The Quiet Man (1952), The Snapper (1993), 6. Michael Collins (1996), 7. The Field (1990), 8. Intermission (2003), 9. Veronica Guerin (2003), 10. Inside I'm Dancing (2004). In the past many Irish movies were censored or banned, owing largely to the influence of the Catholic church, although virtually no cuts or bans have been issued in recent years. Ireland has also proved a popular location for shooting films, largely due to the tax breaks, with The Quiet Man (1952), Braveheart (1995), Reign of Fire (2002) and King Arthur (2004) all being shot in Ireland. The first film ever shot in Ireland was The Lad from Old Ireland (1910), which was advertised as "The first ever film recorded on two continents". The Irish movie was a short silent story about a young Irishman who went to the USA to find riches, before returning home to save his family home from creditors. The first cinema in Ireland (the Volta) was opened in 1909. Ireland has a high rate of cinema admissions — the highest in Europe. The biggest multiplex Irish movies chain in the country is Ward Anderson (owners of the Cineplex, Omniplex, and Savoy brands), with other cinemas being owned by United Cinemas International, Cineworld (formerly UGC Cinemas), and Vue (formerly Ster Century). One of the largest Irish owned independent cinema chains is Storm Cinemas, with cinemas currently in Belfast, Limerick, Waterford, Navan, Naas, Portlaoise and Cavan. In Autumn 2005, a new multiplex cinema chain, Movies(at) entered the market, opening its first cinema in Dundrum, with Galway and Swords sites to come. There is also a large video rental market for Irish movies, dominated by Xtravision, a subsidiary of Blockbuster.

Donal Gallery shines in breakout role in new Irish black comedy 'Turning Green'

Ireland is no country for young men

Be the first to make a comment.

news

sport

entertainment

business

travel

advice

opinion

multimedia

roots

food & drink