A film for all the family: lockdown movie starring dad, mum and son wins award
A FILM shot amid lockdown and featuring members of the same Co Down family has won an international award.
Shielding Nico, a Cinemagic short that was filmed over three days last summer, picked up the Special Covid-19 Award at the Chicago Irish Film Festival, in recognition of the team’s creative response to the virus crisis.
Maire Campbell made her directorial debut with the film, which she also wrote and which stars Bangor actor Richard Clements, his 10-year-old son, Nico, and his wife, Maria Fuentes Mora. Neither Nico nor Maria had acted before.
Their 14-year-old daughter, Sofia, worked as a runner as the family home was transformed into a movie set.
The story centres on Matt, a former Premiership footballer who has fallen on hard times following injury, as he attempts to rebuild his fractured relationship with his son during lockdown.
When his ex-wife turns up at his door and tells him that he must look after their son, a chronic asthmatic, because she is a frontline health worker, he has to step up to the challenge.
Richard, who previously appeared in The Fall and The Frankenstein Chronicles, described working with his family as an “amazing and surreal” experience that he would never forget.
“When the first lockdown happened and the world shut down, it meant 10 months of theatre work that I had lined up had to go,” he added.
“I’d worked with Cinemagic before on A Christmas Star and a few shorts, so I was only too happy to help when approached by (Cinemagic chief executive) Joan Burney Keatings and offered the chance to work on this project.
“Joan asked me how I felt about involving my family in the film as a way of getting round Covid restrictions.
“Nico and Maria had never acted before, but Nico and I filmed a scene together beforehand and he did a tremendous job, so he came on board.
“My wife had helped me with tapes in the past, so she agreed to appear in Shielding Nico too. She plays my ex-wife, which was weird, but she did a great job.
“Sofia is the only other one in the family who has acted — she was in The Fall too. She acted as a runner on the set, helping out behind the scenes, so it was very much a family affair.”
With group sizes restricted to six under Covid rules, the family was only ever joined by two crew members — one on camera and one on sound — and Maire directed much of the action from outside, with the doors and windows of their home in Bangor left open to facilitate this.
Masks were removed for speaking scenes and replaced once these sections had wrapped.
“Because my character is down on his luck and depressed, the house he lives in had to be a bit of a mess,” said Richard.
“Over the three days of the shoot, our house was turned upside down. It was totally unrecognisable.”
Richard, who has since filmed the Northern Ireland Screen-funded The Lost Pig, added that while Nico had taken to acting like a duck to water, he was not interested in sticking with it. “He gave a really natural performance and I really enjoyed our scenes, but he isn’t showing any signs of wanting to purse acting as a career,” he said.
“Working with my family was incredible. It was challenging at times and a very different way of doing things. But with the last year a write-off for so many actors, I feel blessed to have had the chance to do this film.
“I’m delighted for Maire and Joan that their hard work has been awarded.”
Maire, the artistic director of the Rainbow Factory School of Performing Arts, said the film explored how people coped with being thrown together in unusual circumstances.
“The film is called Shielding Nico because the father is supposed to be shielding the son, but in the end it’s the son who shields and saves the father,” she explained.
“I felt it was important to show that children absorb everything — the mood of their parents and negativity around things like Covid or politics.
“The film also deals with the issue of male mental health, and Richard was brilliant at portraying that vulnerability.”
Maire, who last year won the Irish Screenwriters’ Rising Star Award, said that while a lot of work went into the short, the results were more than worth it.
Cinemagic’s chief executive Joan Burney Keatings said she was delighted with the award and to have had so much positive feedback.
“Shielding Nico has also been shortlisted for the Fastnet Film Festival, which has given us the confidence to enter it into lots of other festivals,” she added.
“It has such an uplifting and important message — that often it’s children who save us, not the other way around. We’re just delighted it’s been received so well.”
Cinemagic is running the On the Pulse Film Festival from March 15 to 31. For information, visit www. cinemagic.org.uk