Happy Birthday to Me

Director: Peter Mackie Burns

Year: 2019

At 46, Dubliner Colm has a comfortable life: a managerial job in the city’s docks, two healthy teenage children, and a kind, loyal wife in Claire. After the death of his father, a destructive figure, Colm’s emotional life cracks open, and his downward spiral continues when he is made redundant. Drinking heavily and unable to confide in Claire, Colm finds himself drawn to Jay, a 19 year-old who dabbles in prostitution. Their sexual encounters and tentative friendship become Colm’s only solace from the pressures he feels - but this recklessness puts his family-life at risk.<br /> Masculinity, familial dysfunction and the very nature of love come under the microscope in this nuanced and powerfully affecting drama from the director of DAPHNE and the writer of ADAM AND PAUL and GARAGE, centred upon a stunning lead performance by Tom Vaughan-Lawlor. <br /> Official Selection Venice Film Festival 2019 - Orizzonti - World premiere

Director: Peter Mackie Burns

Year: 2017

Londoner Daphne is caught up in the daily rush of her restaurant job and an agitated nightlife. She is strong, funny, and acerbic but deep down she is not happy. When she saves the life of a shopkeeper, stabbed in a failed robbery, the armour she wears to protect herself begins to crack... <br /> A vibrant character portrait of a young woman on the threshold of a much-needed change.

Director: Peter Mackie Burns

Year: 2012

Berlin Golden Bear-winning director Peter Mackie Burns allows the audience access to the private lives of disparate groups of characters who reside in the city of Glasgow. <br /> <br /> We are privy to their conversations, private moments and everyday occurrences in a piece that often makes for uncomfortable and even voyeuristic viewing. <br /> <br /> Accompanied by the ambient music of Sigur Ros the city takes on a character of its own as we follow their lives from cradle to grave through an ever-changing landscape.<br /> <br /> Come Closer is about change, the constant flux that happens to people and places, and how that change affects their relationships. Crossing boundaries of age, sex, class and religion, it causes the audience to reconsider the everyday in their own lives.