'Considering Carol'

A budding Portstewart film director is making his mark on the film world.

Paddy was named Best Director and won the Best Documentary award at the Cantebury Film Festival, for his short film about Portstewart woman Carol Kelly.

The four minute film, tells the story of Carol and her struggle with paranoid schizophrenia.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The short film shows Carol reading one of her poems about her illness, giving viewers an insight into her condition.

Paddy told:” I have known Carol for a long time.

“She is very well known in the Portstewart area, she would have come in and out of the Anchor Bar when I worked there, and was always very popular at the karaoke.

“I knew about Carol’s health problems, so I asked her if she would sit down with me some day and do a film about it, and she agreed.

“The footage is very simple. It shows Carol reading one of her poems, but I think it is very thought provoking.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“I put the film on YouTube and it got about 5,000 hits in a few days, so both myself and Carol were very pleased.

“My university lecturer then entered it into a few film festivals, and I was delighted to get positive feedback from the judges in Cantebury. I won Best Director and Best Producer, which I am thrilled about.”

A modest Paddy also picked up a University of Ulster award for the best Post Graduate Project at Coleraine University.

He is currently working on a film about the Community Rescue Service.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“I read in The Coleraine Times about the mother of a young lad from Bushmills who had drowned. She bravely jumped out of a plane to raise money for the Community Rescue Service, so that got me thinking about a film, I got in touch with Sean McCarry and I just finished filming it last week.”

In the past year Paddy has a few of his projects broadcast on UTV, the most recent was his documentary about sudden cardiac death in young people, where he told the story of his childhood friend Aaron Lundy, in a bid to promote the work of the charity CRY.