UCC Film and Screen Media graduate in contention for Oscar nomination

4 Feb 2021

A short film by a UCC graduate is in contention for an Oscar nomination, after securing a place on the Academy Awards 2021 longlist.

Kerry writer and director Shaun O’Connor’s A White Horse was filmed in Cork city and county. The story, which takes place in the 1970s, explores how mental hospitals were once used as catch-alls for people considered "troublesome" or "abnormal". 

Mr O'Connor, a 2006 UCC graduate of MA in Film Studies, was inspired to explore this subject after discovering that gay conversion therapy was widespread in the British Isles in the 1960s and ’70s.

The director said his time in UCC had a formative impact on his successful career: “My time at UCC was pivotal in my filmmaking career. 

"Doing the MA in Film Studies there introduced me to so much film history and gave me new ways to interpret and appreciate the medium. It was a formative experience. And the college, course and lecturers have all been incredibly supportive of my work in the years since."

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