'In Midleton, there used to be this glorious cinema': Adam O'Keeffe on getting into films in East Cork 

As his feature, Horseshoe, opens in Irish cinemas, the Carrigtwohill native explains how he fell in love with the film world 

A scene from Horseshoe, by Cork filmmaker Adam O'Keeffe. 

The filmmaker Adam O’Keeffe, 41, got the movie bug growing up in Carrigtwohill, East Cork. Sitting at home, from the age of five or six, he used to watch films on old VHS tapes on repeat. Gorging on anything he could feast his eyes on, from Fred Astaire tap-dancing in musicals to Robin Hood swashbuckling his way around Sherwood Forest. And once he got inside the doors of a cinema, his imagination ran riot.

“In Midleton, there used to be this glorious cinema where the Farmgate was until recently,” says O’Keeffe. “It was one of those cinemas that had the old red couches instead of individual seats. There were a few decades worth of stickiness on the floor. I remember seeing the first Jurassic Park there around 1993. Whoof. Spielberg in his pomp. When you're that young, that level of awe gets into your bones.”