45 days ago Blinder Films launched one of the most ambitious crowd-funding campaigns for an Irish film ever. This campaign set a goal of €50,000 to help the filmmakers realise their vision of making a documentary titled The Queen of Ireland, charting the journey of Rory O’Neill, aka Panti Bliss, from the small Mayo town of Ballinrobe to the world stage. Last night that campaign came to an end with a record breaking €53,927 pledged from 962 funders.
The film is directed by filmmaker and photographer Conor Horgan (One Hundred Mornings, Deep End Dance, The Beholder) and produced by Blinder Films (The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, Citadel, One Hundred Mornings), and builds up a multi-faceted picture of a complex and compelling character through behind the scenes footage, archive, music and interviews with friends, peers and protégés.
The team have been filming with O’Neill intermittently over the last few years on a shoestring budget and plan to continue filming and supporting him right up to the marriage equality referendum. This was the reason that they set such an ambitious goal, to raise money for equipment, license music and archive footage, interview additional contributors, post production and promotion of the final film.
The Queen of Ireland is due to be finished in Spring 2015, following the referendum on Marriage Equality. For updates on the progress of the documentary, check it out on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.