My Name Is Emily

Emily is sixteen and living with a foster family. Her father is a writer; he came apart after her mother's death and is now in a psychiatric hospital. A card used to arrive from him on every birthday; this year it did not. Emily decides to break her father out of the hospital. Arden, a boy she knows from school, agrees to drive her, and the two of them set off across Ireland. The story behind the film should not be less known than the film. Simon Fitzmaurice wrote the screenplay with a computer operated by his eyes, at a time when motor neurone disease had left him unable to speak or move, and he directed on set the same way. It is the only known instance. Fitzmaurice died in 2017. The film is built as a road story; Evanna Lynch plays Emily and George Webster plays Arden. It was nominated in eight categories at Ireland's awards that year.