Monologue Blogger: engaging in film dialogues

At my first internship in New York in 2017, I wrote short film reviews and interviewed filmmakers for feature articles. The website has since repositioned more creatively, where it provides creators (actors, directors, producers, influencers, teachers) with thousands of free monologues, scenes, plays and scripts. For this reason, my work is no longer on site, but I have 10+ pieces of work available to share.

The following is one such example of an interview with Antoin Beag Ó Colla, screenwriter of the 2013 short Rúbaí.

In Rúbaí, the atheism of its eight year old protagonist puts Ireland’s turbulent relationship with Catholicism under the microscope. Here, the short’s Award-winning writer Antoin Beag Ó Colla tells us about its beginnings and what living in Ireland has meant generally in his filmic life.

What inspired you to write the Rúbaí script?

Rúbaí came about in a really organic way. I grew up in a really remote part of Ireland called Donegal. It's cut off from everything - like an Irish Alaska but not as cold or exotic - and as a result it's still quite conservative. The Catholic church here is massive and at the time if you lived in the area you had to participate in the church. There was massive societal shame if you didn't go to mass on a Saturday evening. So I grew up with the normal Catholic upbringing and for a while was quite religious. When I was a teenager I realised that not only I was gay, I was just incredibly gay and that was a big turning point for me. I just didn't get how something so natural could be wrong according to the Bible. I rebelled and eventually wanted nothing to do with the church. The film Dogma actually was a massive moment for me as well. You would never hear such blasphemy in Ireland. Thanks Silent Bob!

So the film was always in my head because you can say to Irish people I'm a Protestant, Jew, Jedi Knight - whatever you want and they'll be respectful, but the second you say that you're an Atheist you get people passionately arguing against you saying that you're wrong. And that was a massive bug bear of mine. I felt like kids should be allowed to make their own choice when they're old enough. Why in doctrine them into something they might not want anything to do with?

The film was always there but it arrived to me fully formed on a Saturday morning in Dublin. I was walking past Stoneybatter Church going to college and there was a commotion outside a church. I thought that a celebrity was getting married because a really opulent stretched limo pulled up and me being the nosey prick I am went over and had a look. A girl got out of the limo dressed to the nines in her communion gear. It was as if this girl was a celebrity. The next thing I saw was the mother getting out and finally her Dad. He's looking well in his Anthony Ryan suit and I couldn't believe my eyes. He was handcuffed to a Garda. I just thought, "This communion means nothing to this family. It's a day out. But look at everyone. They've all bought into it." I think I wrote Rúbaí a few days after.

Many other film features shed light on why Catholicism is losing prominence in Ireland, like the Oscar-winning Spotlight. Do you think your film would've been harder to make or fund in the more restrictive 70s/80s?

There is absolutely no way that Rúbaí would have been made in the 70s/80s. Not on your life. Speaking out about the church now is still taboo. Even when we were auditioning girls we would get phone calls from some parents and once they would hear that it was the story of a little girl who was an Atheist they would freak out. Our poor producer Gemma just got yelled at. A lot.

Some people take Catholicism really seriously but overall it is dying out. We're fed up of all of the sex abuse scandals, the adoption scandals and the baptism barrier. In 90% of Irish schools you really need to have a child baptised to ensure a place at the local school. The Church runs the schools for reasons I don't understand. So you have parents doing it out of fear. You should love a God and want to worship him, not be a Catholic because you're afraid of your child being left behind.

What was your reasoning for choosing Gaeilge? While authentic, were either you or director Louise Ni Fhiannachta worried it would alienate audiences?

There were two reasons why I chose to do the film as Gaeilge (in Irish). It's my native tongue and it's also Louise's native tongue. We both grew up in remote areas where Irish was the spoken language so for us it's not really a big deal to do anything in Irish. Even Doireann who played Rúbaí, she's brought up in a house where Irish was the spoken language. So it was a natural fit for all of us.

The second reason is that Irish itself isn't a romantic language. It's very technical and cold. So for Rúbaí to have a priest and teacher tell her she's wrong it adds a layer to the film. It's something that a lot of the audience could relate to, like being scolded by a grumpy Irish teacher.

Do you know if children have watched the feature?

Children have watched it and they get it on a fundamental level. They see an outsider and can relate to it on that level. They just think she's being cheeky and that it's fun to annoy your teacher. I don't think many kids get some of the overriding themes or jokes like transubstantiation. I'm an adult and I still don't!

In Irish education, how important do you feel it to protect our national language by keeping it in curriculum?

I'm a massive supporter of the Irish language. I have a career thanks to Irish. I've played in Tribeca because of Irish. I'm this country bumpkin and I've had my work screened all over the world. Speaking Irish is something that contributed massively to that so I want to promote the language as best I can.

I would like to see a more accessible curriculum though. There is nothing really to make kids want to engage with the language. There's a stereotype that Irish is only spoken in the mountains by guys in big Aran jumpers on their fishing boats. That does happen but there's a huge revival in Irish going on in the minute. I've done stand-up in Irish. There's rap music in Irish. There's all sorts. If Irish is cool, kids will learn it. I think the people who run the curriculum and TV stations don't get that. They're from an older generation and are often out of the loop. They don't even know who Biggie Smalls is!

Back to your own writing, what are your creative beginnings? Did you study screenwriting?

I kind of always wanted to be a writer but I didn't know how'd you go about it at all. I was a really shy teen with no self-esteem whatsoever so I never thought that I could do it. I somehow got into college in Dublin on a scholarship from the Dublin Institute of Technology and I did Media Arts to do radio broadcasting. But when I was there there was a screenwriting module. I did a few scripts which were beyond awful but I enjoyed it. The big change for me was going on a student exchange trip to Columbia College in Chicago. I put myself down for a Screenwriting class with Mary Novak who was amazing. It was here that I really fell in love with writing. On my first day in class she tells us that over the next 4 months we're going to write an 85 page feature. I've never been so terrified in my life. But I just took to it and wrote a feature script called Welcome to Stony Park. I excelled in that class thanks to Mary and when I came back to Ireland I tried to keep it up as a hobby but I worked full time to pay for college and had to keep up with assignments. So once I graduated and was unemployed I had the time to physically write properly. It's worked out so far!

Have you anything else you're working on or coming up that you can give Monologue Blogger readers a heads up about?

I don't want to sound like I'm a big shot but my new Irish language short film An Mhallacht (The Curse) is premiering on Sunday the 26th in Dingle Film Festival. So you have the big exclusive! It's an Irish language dark comedy about a county in Ireland called Mayo and how their sports team in Gaelic football is supposedly cursed since 1951. I believe they're like the Red Sox. Well up until last year anyway! The thing is that Mayo haven't won the final since then despite having a strong team and getting to the final 7 times. The info is with the production company Station House Media. Asides that I've written for an Irish drama series called Red Rock and a weekly satirical political radio show called Callan's Kicks.

If any of your readers are loaded and want to fund my next film, I'm quite ok with that. I really don't mind.

Have you any advice for budding writers like yourself? Where do they even start once they've written something they're proud of?

The 3 big pieces of advice I have are:

1. What can the character do at the end of the film he can't do at the start?

2. What is your films story in a sentence. If you can't explain your film in a sentence you probably don't have a film.

3. Write what is unique to your life. You have the advantage in having a perspective and outlook on life that no one else has or has ever experienced. Use it to your advantage! You don't have to write about girls, drugs or rock and roll. Write a film about a little girl or a cursed football team. Be you!

The film was shown here at Tribeca, which is some achievement. Just curious, on an ending note, given the success of the film you wrote, do you think the Irish begrudge other Irish doing well?

That's a funny question. There's definitely a sense in Ireland of begrudgery and who "does he think he is". Irish people just do not brag. My take on it is that Irish people grew up poor in a lot of cases and remember the hard times in the 50s and 80s. You don't want people to have a reason to dislike you or to stand in the way of you getting a job or keeping it.

I grew up with a massive lack of self esteem and to get over that I tell people that I'm the future of words. People just laugh at me because my arrogance is so all-consuming. It's such a funny concept for an Irishman to think he's just fantastic. I'm sure Conor McGregor stole his whole arrogance routine from me!!!