Film maker Maeve Murphy told David Hennessy about her short film St Pancras Sunrise which deals with issues such as the safety of sex workers and corrupt police.
An Irish short film that deals with some timely themes is set to come to the ICC in Hammersmith as part of the forthcoming London Breeze Festival.
Maeve Murphy is the acclaimed writer/ director of such films as Silent Grace, starring Orla Brady, which told the story of hunger striking prisoners in Armagh Women’s Prison. The film, which has named as one of the most important Irish films ever made, was inspired by true events.
Also inspired by true events is her latest offering.
St Pancras Sunrise is based on the real life occupation of Holy Cross Church in Kings Cross in 1982 and is also very timely with tragic recent events such as the killing of Sarah Everard.
St Pancras Sunrise tells the story of Blathnaid, played by Emma Eliza Regan, a young Irish musician arrives in London. She arrives in Kings Cross full of optimism. She meets her neighbour Nadina who happens to be a streetwalker and Jake a bad local cop who harasses her on arrival.
But the course of Blathnaid’s life is changed when she finds Nadina deceased and she joins Susan and local activists in sheltering in a church for safety and fighting for change.
Jim Sheridan is executive producer.
Maeve told The Irish World what inspired the story.
Maeve said: “Just before the pandemic, I wrote a little short story for The Irish Times, Christmas at the Cross and they put it up online.
“Martin Doyle, who is the book editor there, put it up online on Christmas Eve and it went into most read or something like that.
“I was so encouraged by that because I don’t like prose, I’m a filmmaker.
“I realised Blathnaid and Nadina were very strong characters: The young Irish woman who was trying to make a career as a musician in London and Nadina, who was her neighbour and she knows her as her neighbour first and then discovers she’s a streetwalker.
“She’s her friend and they’re just such an odd pairing as a friendship but they really get on and they really support each other.
“I think when the pandemic happened, I didn’t know what to do, and I thought, ‘Well, I’ve written this story. Maybe I should just continue’.
“It’s such a strong world, the King’s Cross that it was actually set in in the early 90s.
“Because when I lived there, it was in the early 90s, but it was still a red light district then, and much of the same issues were still around. Because of the time of the pandemic, everybody was kind of in a state of emergency but also really bonding as a community. It really reminded me of that world of King’s Cross so I wrote another few stories so they all united together as a bigger story.
“That got published as a novella and then The Irish Times kept serialising it.
“I sent it off to Screen Ireland because, primarily, I’m a filmmaker.
“I wrote the screenplay of it just as I got a publishing deal, that was bit weird.
“Because I’m so character led, my work is very much to do with the characters and how they connect and how people change each other.
“Jim Sheridan has got involved as exec producer but he was even involved in the book stage and gave a quote saying he thought it was really riveting material, strong material.”
Blathnaid and Nadina are very different in that Blathnaid is naïve and full of dreams and Nadina is much more streetwise..
“They become friends because they’re connected by music as well.
“They also have a liking for life as well.
“But definitely Nadine is more street smart and Blathnaid is a bit innocent.
“She’s not stupid but she’s just a little bit more innocent, a little bit more dreamy and probably doesn’t quite realise how dark things can get.”
The story is also timely in that it depicts a male policeman with bad intentions.
“There is this event that actually happens where local women, some street walkers and some local female activists joined together and they took over the church but with the church’s kind of permission because it wasn’t aggressive or anything like that, it was almost like a sanctuary situation but then they turned it into a protest because it had just got out of control the way that local women were being treated.
“And that included the police who were really pushing them about, taking advantage really, of their kind of authority.
“It’s funny. I was just looking through some of your articles and I noticed you did something on Kings Fantastic film. It’s a really good article. And I knew Tom Collins as well: Great man, great film maker.
“I was just thinking in a way, Kings really drilled into that Irish male immigrant experience in London which I observed and saw, but the Irish female experience is slightly less mined and so that Orla (Brady) character is something that there’s more of in the film than there was in the book, this woman who’s left Ireland because of the constriction of the church and stuff that like that.
“So she’s got a different voice that we possibly haven’t heard so much of.
“Not saying it’s a female Kings because it’s not, but it’s got a little tiny bit of that in it.”
There is a slightly similar dynamic between older and younger characters in this as in your well known film, Silent Grace where once again Orla Brady played the older inmate taking a younger one under her wing.
There is also an interesting paraellel with an early short film of yours, Amazing Grace that sees a young man in that case played by Aidan Gillen come to London and befriends a woman from home who also happens to be a sex worker..
“Yeah, I think there is this thing about being Irish in London or Irish away, the bones of Irishness suddenly become much more important and you suddenly find yourself connecting with people just on the grounds of being Irish which is sometimes a good thing, that sometimes maybe doesn’t have to be a good thing either.
“There’s an awful lot of trust involved there but it is also a way that people find anchors and survival networks and just networks.
“It’s just because they are both from Belfast and his sister knew her sister or something like that, that loose a connection.
“Definitely I found that in my experience, that you kind of connected with people or bonded quite quickly with people on grounds of nationality.
“And also the north and the south get pushed together much more quickly as well.
“This whole thing of being a northerner or southerner, the distinction sort of blurs a lot here when you’re away more.
“There’s a prostitute in Amazing Grace.
“Because I had lived in King’s Cross for two and a half years, it did have an impact seeing that world.
“This tragic thing happens and it has a colossal impact on Blathnaid.
“I suppose it shows that great sorrow can transform somebody.
“It can be a fuel for positive growth sometimes, it is with her.”
Sadly violence against women is a story that is so relevant after events of recent years..
“Frankie plays Jake, the guy who we think is soliciting for sex who’s actually the off duty policeman who kills Nadina.
“I agree, it has that resonance with Sarah Everard’s tragic death and what has been uncovered about the Met Police.
“It’s so horrific that.
“The timing is really interesting because I think if we’d been trying to get the short and then the feature made before, people wouldn’t have believed it.
“I think they just genuinely wouldn’t have believed it.
“But now when you see case after case, sexual assault after sexual assault case coming up, clearly there wasn’t proper vetting going on and so there was almost rogue units in Kings Cross, they could just do whatever the hell they wanted, and they did but that wasn’t just an issue there, that has been an issue everywhere.
“It’s still an issue.
“Sarah Everard was just a couple of years ago really and week in, week out when you see the news there is another officer or ex officer up in court and I think just very recently, they were found to be ‘failing’ as an institution in every area, in terms of sexism, racism..
“It’s highlighting that as well and safety for women within that, who do you turn to when the people who are supposed to protect you are not the protectors?
“But I also think underneath it is this solidarity and people who seem not to have power, who don’t have a voice kind of turning the tables and doing a bit of the David and Goliath thing.
“That’s what attracted me.
“It’s absolutely timely and resonant.”
In 1982 sex workers occupied Kings Cross Church to protest against police harassment, the sit in lasted 12 days.
“There was an agreement made with them that the local police were monitored by a woman.
“They were sort of ahead of their time that they were heard.
“It showed that there was an issue so in that way, it broke ground
“For such a long time, it’s just been seen as, ‘Oh, these things don’t really matter’.”
There’s the attitude that because they operate outside the law, they are not entitled to police protection..
“Sometimes it’s worse than that, it’s people taking advantage of the fact that they can’t report what happens to them. Because they’re working outside of the law, really horrific things can happen.”
That allows someone like Jake to operate in the way he does, because he knows there is no comeback..
“Exactly he knows there’s no comeback.
“All he has to say is ‘she’s a whore’ and he will be listened to and nobody will listen to them.
“We haven’t really seen that much in British film, the Wayne Couzens type character.
“He was in the diplomatic core and stuff like that.
“He seemed to get away with stuff for quite a long time before he was finally arrested.
“At least he was arrested but back in the day he wouldn’t have been.
“There was a prostitute killed by a policeman in Kings Cross in 1981 so it has roots in reality.
“But the upside is that spirit of solidarity and those women saying, ‘We do count. Our lives do matter. We deserve a bit of respect as well’.”
There are plans for a feature film. Maeve has seen the short film connecting with people all over the world.
“People are really connecting to it. I’ve never done a short film which has had such a wide, international interest.”
London Breeze Film Festival runs 23- 27 October.
St Pancras Sunrise screens at The Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith 2.30pm on 26 October as part of the In Short: Ireland programme.
For more information, click here.