Luke O'Donoghue
My Poor Boy is a punchy, action-packed, drama-comedy that brings together elements of zany comedic storytelling and introspective Irish drama. This short brings together themes of toxic masculinity and isolation in the digital age grounded in the aesthetics of rural Ireland, providing a dark and comedic take on online culture in a way that feels distinctly unique.
This project seeks to marry the bizarre aesthetics of 80s professional wrestling, early internet culture and rural Ireland all in one short film. This eclectic mix of themes, visuals and characters needed to achieve a consistent tone in which light hearted comedic moments could work to great effect alongside extremely dramatic scenes.
In making this project we managed to create a work that paid homage to the colourful visual on-screen worlds that we were raised on, while also providing a unique lens through which we could better understand the psyche of a terminally online generation. We strove to tell a story about three generations of masculinity and the separate worlds and spaces they inhabit in a cohesive and natural way.
I wrote this thesis to explore how documentary cinema represents the experience of urban life beyond simple factual documentation. While documentaries are often associated with presenting information or historical record, I became interested in how certain filmmakers instead use cinematic techniques such as montage, duration, observation, and narration to communicate the experiential truths of the city. By focusing on the lived experience of urban space, these films reveal how cities are shaped not only by architecture and infrastructure, but also by movement, labour, memory, and social interaction.
Luke is a Dublin-based producer, director, and assistant director. Luke has produced a wide variety of work in his time at the NFS, ranging from vibrant fashion films, punchy comedies, and heartfelt and sincere documentaries. His time in the NFS began in 2022 and he quickly developed a penchant for assistant directing and production, building up a depth of experience on low-budget films before eventually spearheading many such projects himself, both inside and outside of college.
