Irish director Portia ready to hit the big screen with her new film
Waterford native working with hubby on a first feature-length production
Meet the young Irishwoman following in the footsteps of Normal People director Lenny Abrahamson as she sets upon directing her first full-length feature film. Waterford native Portia A Buckley and her husband of three years Michael Lindley have been working together for eight years.
The pair got married in a little church in Lismore, Co Waterford, where they also shot one of their Cork Film Festival award-winning short movies God’s Own Children.
With an MA in Photography and Film in Contemporary Art and an MFA in Writing and Directing Film at Tisch School of the Arts from New York University, Portia has dedicated her life to film and it’s paying off.
Michael, a trained actor at L.A.M.D.A. and Webber Douglas Academies, has writing credits including the 2014 hit The Hooligan Factory and more recently the 2020 film Twist.
The pair have collectively shot and produced three short films with their production company, Afternoon films, two of which are set in Ireland, Radiator and God’s Own Children.
Both movies star new Irish talent and now with a feature film in the pipeline the dynamic duo are on course to be the next big thing.
Portia, 29, told the Irish Mirror: “I really liked Normal People, beautifully shot and character driven too.
“Similar to Normal People the characters in our films dictate the plot.”
Michael, 40, who is originally from Guernsey, added: “You don’t want to labour a social point but you should be making one if you’re making a film.
“We try to colour it with comedy too, there’s enough costume drama to be getting on with.
“The plot or the story is born out of the characters’ choices and flaws and how that tends to spiral, rather than something that is heavily plotted.
“I think Normal People is like that – it’s really all character based. We always like the character making decisions and not really explaining the back story of it.
“They’re just making decisions like people do and then dealing with the consequences.”
Portia added: “Lenny is so brilliant. I’m just thinking about Room, that movie he did which starred Brie Larson and how clever he was.
“Shooting it from the child’s point of view. But there was a rape scene and what he shows and doesn’t show – he’s a master at that.”
Having trained as an actor Mike realised he wanted more control and threw himself into writing. He said: “I’ve been a jobbing screen writer.
“I just wrote on a film, a modern adaptation of Oliver Twist with Michael Caine and Lena Headey from Game Of Thrones – you have more control as a writer.”
Portia won big for her work on the gritty short, Birthday Girl, shot in underprivileged Moss Side in Manchester which focused on the plight of a single mum.
Portia said: “At Tisch, which is NYU, I won the screenwriting award – that film school has so many talented people.
“It felt like a bit of an honour because I really admire my peers and their work.”
In Radiator the characters are down and out because they’re governed by their addiction.
The two addicts try to escape the parochial confines of rural Ireland.
Portia said: “Stig is played by an up-and-coming actor James Browne and Declan is a guy played by Henry Collie – it was quite interesting finding those two. Bad decisions drive the plot line.”
In the short film, God’s Own Children, two little ragamuffin brothers discover the local parish priest is not as holy as they think.
The underlying themes to all their movies are realism and the couple assert they aim to tell “the
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Rural Ireland really lends itself to filming. After being in New York for so long, you don’t see a lot of green there
untold story”. With Birthday Girl getting the green light to be a feature length movie and the yet to be titled Irish feature film in the pipeline, the pair are loving being quarantined in the sunny southeast.
Portia said: “We’re working on an Irish feature – we’ve never had more time to write.
“An Irishman left Ireland as a young 19-year-old man and has become estranged from his own family by his own doing.
“He has to come back to Ireland and come back to his roots and come back to his own family politics, kind of ostracised from his own rural community.
“He has a weak moral compass and drug dependency and he wants to tear the community apart. But he ends up as the story goes on, appreciating all the things he thought he hated.
“He gets off the drugs and his eyes are opened up to the magical place he comes from.
“Rural Ireland really lends itself to filming. After being in New York for so long, you don’t see a lot of green there.
“The Irish have such incredible turns of phrases and there’s an amazing lyricism, especially in the countryside.
“We love writing Irish scripts, I spent every summer of my life here. I’m Irish, My dad’s Irish, my greatgrandmother went to Trinity.
“I have a real affinity with Ireland, when you’re working with small budgets there’s something lovely about working in the Irish landscape and all that greenery.
“In Radiator you had the slightly oppressive relationship between the two characters, in a beautiful setting, although it’s bleak and grey, it’s beautiful.
“Something we’re experiencing a lot lately with the pandemic, is really enjoying nature.
‘Since isolation I’m experiencing even more respect for nature than before.”
Michael added: “I had written films for the studio before, but we wanted these films to be really personal, work together and build a body of work, really invest ourselves in the stories and create a name for ourselves as a duo.”