The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
A tribute to Listowel’s Toto
Fergus Dennehy talks to Listowel filmmaker and director, Ed O’Connor about his upcoming documentary entitled ‘The Window in Heavens Gable’ which tells the story of Listowel native Kieran Gleeson and his tireless work as the owner of the Listowel Classic Cinema. The film will be screened next Thursday May 31 and will be in aid of the Irish Motor Neurone Association.
IT was over a year in the making and involved hours upon hours of interviews, editing and travelling up and down the country, but now, the filmmakers behind ‘The Window in Heavens Gable’ are ready to show the world what they have created.
The film tells the story of Kieran Gleeson, who gave up his safe and well paying job in accountancy to become the owner and the heart of the Classic Cinema in Listowel for over 30 years.
The film will screen at 8:30pm on the night of Thursday May 31 in the Classic Cinema in Listowel; the documentary will feature interviews from Listowel filmmakers Pj Dillon and Gerard Barrett.
Both Pj and Gerard will be attending the film screening on the night and will be supporting the Irish Motor Neurone charity as well.
After Kieran passed away from Motor Neurone Disease back in February 2016, Ed O’Connor and his two friends Seamus Flemon and Kevin Mulcahy decided to make a film as tribute to the great work of Listowel’s “Toto”.
“I knew Kieran ever since I first started going to the cinema at the age of 14 which is a long time ago now. I knew that I wanted to make a documentary and one night my sister said to me that she had the perfect story to make a film about,” said Ed, speaking to The Kerryman on Friday.
“Kieran’s story about opening the film has everything that you would want - passion, heart and a love of cinema at the centre of it all. In opening the cinema, we like to say that Kieran followed his heart and opened a picture palace. He gave up such a safe career to follow his heart,” Ed said.
Speaking about the late Kieran’s first involvement in the film industry, Ed spoke about Kieran’s grandfather who first bought a workmans shed from Ardnacrusha in the 1920’s and he brought this to Cappaghmore and established the first cinema there.
“His son then built a proper cinema there and that is where Kieran would learned all about film and cinema from a very young age, in that projection room,” he continued.
After going away and becoming an accountant, Ed said that although he was working in a very safe and comfortable said, the love of cinema and films kept knawing away at the back of Kieran’s mind.
“He then heard about a disused cinema in Listowel and decided to give up his career, bought this cinema, renovated it and he did everything in it. He worked every job,” he laughed.
“Someone joked last night that the first time they came to the cinema, Kieran was selling tickets at the counter, he was introducing the film inside and then he would run up to the projection room to get the film started. He was doing everything. It was a real passion project for him,” he laughed again.
“All of the film distributors knew him as well, As part of my research for the documentary, I got onto all the distributors for company’s like Warner Bros and Disney and they remembered him fondly. He knew what films would get the ‘bums on seats’.
This is the very first film that Ed, Seamus and Kevin, the three main men behind the making of
the documentary, have produced and Ed says that he puts it down to the great production training that he received from the Kerry ETB training centre.
“We packed up a small car with our equipment and drove up and down the country for many weekends making this film. It was a no budget production which meant that we had to do everything ourselves.”
“Kevin did the photography, the camera and the lighting, Seamus did the sound and the music and then I did the producing and the directing. It was a real team effort by everyone. We’ve been doing everything from start to finish,” Ed said.
“Everyone who took part and everyone who did interviews with us, some of these people were initially very conscious of talking. In the end though, they said that they wanted to do it for Kieran and in his memory.”
“They all went beyond their comfort zones just for this tribute to him. He had such a great impact on West Limerick and North Kerry. He had such a passion and enthusiasm for film that it became infectious. Everyone wanted to follow him. One woman actually said that she used to come along just to see Kieran’s passion. He always used to introduce films in the film club. He was much a part of the show as the films were,” he continued.
Perhaps the biggest tribute that can be paid to Kieran and his work in the cinema is the inspiration that it gave to other Kerry natives to follow their own film-making dreams.
“In the documentary, Gerard Barrett, says that a major part of him becoming a filmmaker himself was the fact that he had a great local cinema he could go to,” said Ed.
“By Kieran managing to keep this small local cinema open for so many years against all economic odds, it created not only an entire community of local film-goers and film lovers, it also led to the likes of Pj Dillon and Gerard Barrett who have gone on to have international careers in film.”
Looking at the films poster. I am reminded of one of the great films of the twentieth century, ‘Cinema Paradiso’ and when I mentioned this to Ed during our chat, he laughed.
“It’s funny you should mention that film. Kieran always joked that he was Listowel’s version of ‘Toto’ from Cinema Paradiso. I grew up in the projection room looking out that porthole window, That’s why we called the film ‘The Window in Heaven’s Gable,” Ed said.
The film is 70 minutes long and will screen at the Classic Cinema in Listowel on Thursday May 31. There will be a wine reception from 7:30pm onwards with the film itself set to start at 8:30pm. Tickets for the night are set to cost €10 and are available to buy in advance or on the night itself.
All proceeds from ‘The Window in Heavens Gable’ documentary film screening on the night will be in aid of the Irish Motor Neurone Association
In opening the cinema, we like to say that Kieran followed his heart and opened up a picture palace. He gave up a safe career and followed his heart. He had such a great impact on North Kerry.