FilmRise has acquired the North American rights to Frankie Fenton’s award-winning documentary It’s Not Yet Dark, after the film won Best Irish Feature Documentary at the Galway Film Fleadh and enjoyed its international premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.
It’s Not Yet Dark is the story Simon Fitzmaurice, a talented Irish filmmaker who is living with motor neurone disease. He was diagnosed at the age of 34, after his short film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. His wife was expecting their third child and they were left shocked and reeling. Simon refused to give up and started to work on the script for a feature film, My Name is Emily. Now, five years later, the father of five children, he is completely physically incapacitated.
The film is narrated by Colin Farrell, using extracts from Simon’s best-selling memoir. It sees the audience follow Simon as he embarks on the direction of his first feature film through the use of the last physical attribute he has control over – his eyes.
It’s Not Yet Dark is produced by Kathryn Kennedy for Kennedy Films and Lesley McKimm of Newgrange Pictures, it was captured by Fenton and cinematographer Kate McCullough, with Dermot Diskin editing at Windmill Lane, and support from the Irish Film Board.
FilmRise plan to release It’s Not Yet Dark theatrically in mid-2017.