Living in a housing estate with his grandfather, life for Michael McCrea is thrown dramatically and irrevocably off course when he minds drugs for his friend’s brother, gets caught and spends 3 months in jail.
The film Michael Inside has opened to rave reviews, and follows 18-year-old Michael as he comes to terms with a decision that forever altered the course of his life. Director Frank Berry joined Dave Fanning on The Ryan Tubridy Show to talk about the movie, which he researched by spending time with former prisoners.
"We follow him into prison, take a look at his experience in prison and then we follow him out of prison and see how the experience affects his thinking and behaviour… The idea was we just look at this experience in an Irish context, and look at the experience of somebody who is affected by the circumstances of the environment that they’re growing up in, who doesn’t necessarily want to be a criminal but who gets affected by other peoples’ activities."
Frank says this is a tragically common story for people in disadvantaged areas, and one he has seen play out all too often in his work shooting community films around the country.
"When you’re growing up in an environment where a lot of this activity is happening around you, you know, you can make a decision that doesn’t really feel like a decision. It’s almost like an invisible moment where someone asks you to do something and because you’re part of that culture and that environment, you do it, not really being aware that you’re making a huge decision and it can have an enormous impact."
Frank was passionate about bringing the realities he saw in his earlier work to the big screen, to give a voice to communities he felt were drastically unsupported.
"The theme of my first three films has always been about the tragedy of wasted talent in young people and young people going down paths due to not being engaged and not properly being guided… That’s sadly a reality in a lot of disadvantaged communities in Ireland."
