TV3 will air a special double-bill of My Name is Emily and It’s Not Yet Dark on Easter Sunday staring at 9pm. The films celebrate the work of the late Simon Fitzmaurice who was diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease (ALS) in 2008.
Although totally incapacitated, Simon managed to write and direct My Name is Emily, typing the script and communicating to his cast and crew solely through the movement of his eyes and iris recognition software. It’s Not Yet Dark is the companion documentary which charts Simon’s life while making that film.
My Name is Emily, which premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh and won the Best Cinematography Award along with Bingham Ray New Talent award for producer Kathryn Kennedy, is a love story between two teens and a road movie. On her 16th birthday, Emily escapes from her foster home and with the help of Arden, the boy who loves her, she sets out to find her father Robert, a visionary writer locked up in a psychiatric institution.
Evanna Lynch (Harry Potter) stars in the lead role, with support from acclaimed Northern Irish actor Michael Smiley (Kill List, A Field in England) as her father Robert, and newcomer George Webster as Arden.
Narrated by Colin Farrell, It’s Not Yet Dark tells the ground-breaking story of Fitzmaurice as he embarks on directing My Name Is Emily through the use of his eyes and eye gaze technology. The film borrows its title from Simon’s autobiography, which was published in 2015, around halfway through the documentary project.
Directed by Frankie Fenton, the film had its world premiere at Sundance where it was nominated for the World Cinema Documentary Award and has since screened at festivals across the globe including the Edinburgh Film Festival, the Sydney International Film Festival and the Galway Film Fleadh, where it won the awards for Best Irish Feature Documentary and Best Cinematography in an Irish Feature (Kate McCullough).
My Name is Emily will screen at 9pm on TV3 on Easter Sunday, April 1st, followed by It’s Not Yet Dark at 10.50pm.