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Domhnall Cotter

BA [Hons] Film + Television Production

Domhnall Cotter is an award-winning director, screenwriter, and animator from Dublin. His primary interest is infusing the textural elements of genre cinema with sweet, and sad, human narratives. In 2024 he began work on his largest project yet - Star Quest - an ambitious, retro sci-fi inspired drama starring Patrick Bergin, which is in the final stages of post-production. Also in 2024 he directed and animated Drawn Together as part of the RTEjr short scheme and will air on RTÉ in the coming months.

**Star Quest** is a unique fusion of retro sci-fi and poignant human drama.

We enter the final days of CONOR (Patrick Bergin), a once world-famous actor, now wasting away in a hospital bed. Jaded, rejected, he retreats into lost fantasies of former greatness, seeking solace in reliving the adventures of his beloved role CAPTAIN CHUCK.
Amidst the bleakness of hospital life, a small chance for redemption appears in the form of SEAN (Charlie Duffy), a young terminally ill boy.

As Conor opens himself up to this boy, he discovers that sometimes, heroes are not just born on the screen, but also in the hearts of those who dare to dream.
Beneath the shimmering veneer of the retro sci-fi fantasies lies a moving narrative of hope, friendship, and acceptance.
Emotional, cinematic, and rooted in character, **STAR QUEST** is a tribute to the enduring legacy of classic science fiction, and a testament to the extraordinary power of the human heart.

**Drawn Together**
An RTEjr funded short film

**His Dancing Shoes** is an animated drama about regret, lost love, and moving on.
Winner of 'Best Animation' and 'Best Writer' at Animation Dingle 2023, 'Best Student' at Silk Road International Film Festival, and has screened in many festivals both nationally and internationally, including the Galway Film Fleadh, and Irish Animation Awards.

**Retail**
A story told in a single, unmoving, shot over the course of many months **Retail** explores the development of a beautiful friendship between two very different co-workers.
Won 'Best Fiction' at Dublin International Film Festival First Frames 2023.

**The Guitar**
An animated horror drama about a lonely housewife who is forced to take drastic action when her husband shuns her in favour of his new instrument.
Winner 'Best Sound Design' at the Animation Dingle festival 2022, and 'Best Animation' at the Atlanta Horror Festival 2023.

'Dead Boys' - Feature Film Script

Conor, a lonely, love-stricken schoolboy, discovers a living corpse in the attic of his school, and endeavors to help him rebuild his body to head out into the world to win back the heart of his old girlfriend, confronting their own inner demons, regrets of the past, and redefining their beliefs about love and loss along the way.

I envisioned the story as almost a demented sort of ‘heist’ film, where the heist in question is reuniting the poor old corpse with his lost love. Using that idea as the bones onto which I could fuse the thematic meat, the ideas about memory, first loves, regrets, and loss.

My hope is that ‘Dead Boys’ feels like a lot of different genres, rom-com, horror, comedy - but, at its heart, is always a sad drama about love, loss and growing up. All the genre-inflected moments are just tools to bring excitement while we develop the story of this young man.

Conor’s burgeoning friendship with the corpse in the attic, Charlie, is really the crux of the film. Conor, innocent, bullied, naive, is the total opposite to the worldly, confident, and knowledgeable Charlie,

2021 2022 2023 2024

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