Poster Boys: Cork-set road movie was backed by Bobby Kerr

Dave Minogue's debut feature was partly shot in locations around Cork, and he also roped in his nephew to act alongside some well-known faces for the road-trip comedy

Mon, 05 Jul, 2021 - 21:00

Esther N McCarthy

Cork city, Youghal and Macroom are among the local landmarks that feature in Poster Boys, a new road-trip movie that’s a love letter to the towns of Ireland.

The comedy/drama about a man who takes his ten-year-old nephew on a cross-country adventure in a stolen camper van was filmed on a low budget by Dave Minogue, who is making his directorial debut.

Minogue, who works in the film industry as a freelance producer, first happened upon the idea of an Irish road-trip movie while exploring Cork city and county for another project.

“I would have worked as a freelance producer or a fixer on a lot of crews, so I’d have been driving around and that’s what inspired a lot of the locations in the film. I spent a good two days in Cork just driving around with people and being like: ‘This little town is amazing’. This is why the Americans will come over and spend half their time just driving around.”

Starting in Dublin and taking in locations in Kilkenny, Offaly, Kerry, Cork and Waterford, Poster Boys features well-known faces including Keith Duffy, Joe Rooney and Ian Dempsey. It tells the story of a downbeat uncle (Trevor O’Connell) who’s behind on his rent and unhappy in his job. He heads south to babysit his nephew (Ryan Minogue-Lee) and the two have much more drama than they bargained for.

Minogue feels that the growth of motorways and the reliance of workers on the commute means that the pleasures of discovering a picturesque town or village by chance has become less common.

“There was a lot of patience from the crew while I was trying to find the places that I vaguely remembered but knew were beautiful. It's a love letter to the small towns of Ireland in a lot of ways. It’s just a different experience when you don’t know what’s around the corner. The motorways take that away from commuters - they miss out on the places that most people are actually from. It was to find that and get that feeling of the family holidays when we were kids and would go off to Skelligs or around the Beara Peninsula.”

Poster Boys came about during a visit to the Galway Film Fleadh, where Minogue was talking about his film idea with his peers and one of them said: ‘Go do it’.

“That person was Eoghan McKenna. And he had a post production house. He said: ‘If you do it, I'll do all your post for you’.”

Minogue had also gotten the support of entrepreneur and broadcaster Bobby Kerr, who had agreed to be a backer on the project. Suddenly it was gathering pace, and the director had long wanted to feature his own nephew as the co-lead.

“I wanted to do it with my nephew, Ryan. This was mid July. He would be back in school in September, and I didn't really want to be doing it over weekends. So between Galway (in July), and the first of September, that was my deadline.

“I went off and wrote it, raised the money, found the gear, crewed her up, cast and then shot it within five or six weeks. The thing about Ryan is that he's great - he's got this huge charisma and energy about him. That's why I wanted him to be in the film, and capture as much of who he is to bring it into it.”

Made on a budget of €25,000, Minogue knew he had the production experience required - the challenge would be to direct what would be his first feature. “I structured everything around what I could get my hands on, what I could have. A camper van is a really good camera van as well. So we were able to put all the gear into the camper van and then transport everyone in the camper van.”

Filmmakers he admires, like Steven Soderbergh, proved to be an inspiration. “He goes off and shoots things on a phone, or he'll do things with such a small crew.”

The filmmaker has had a strong response to the final movie, with British-based film distributors Kaleidoscope acquiring rights for an Ireland/UK release. There are also plans to release the film internationally.

“It's been overwhelmingly positive. It's a funny road trip and has a lot of heart. And I think people responded quite well to it.” ]