GRIEF, loneliness, disability, homelessness and immigration in Ireland are all explored by the Oscar-shortlisted Room Taken.
Acclaimed Belfast actress Bríd Brennan describes the TJ O’Grady Peyton-directed short film as “a perfect piece of storytelling”.
The Michael Whelan-written film centres on Isaac (Gabriel Adewusi), a newly arrived Nigerian immigrant with nowhere to live who surreptitiously takes refuge in the home of Victoria (Brennan), a blind stranger.
Actors Adewusi and Brennan bring sensitivity to a story which challenges stereotypes as a touching and unexpected bond forms between their characters.
“You can really give yourself up to the humanity of the story and the character, and my co-actor as well, it was all there,” enthuses Brennan of Room Taken, which is shortlisted in the Best Live Action Short Film category.
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Bríd Brennan is forever pinned in our imaginations as Agnes Mundy, the sister who knits quietly and looks out for vulnerable Rose in Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa.
She originated the role onstage in 1990, won a Tony for the New York production in 1992, then reinterpreted it on-screen in 1998 alongside Meryl Streep.
The role of Victoria very much reminds her of Agnes.
“I’ve thought about the similarities so many times. The character of Agnes was such a great listener; quietly getting on with her life and listening to everybody else. And because she can no longer see, listening is all Victoria can do.
“They are both very physical parts in so many ways - the dancing that Agnes does and with how she expresses herself and how Victoria moves through her home and life now that she’s lost her sight.”
They are the type of roles she cherishes: “I love to think about how you use movement to express yourself and to tell a story.”
After studying French and English at Queen’s University Belfast, Brennan studied acting, finding her niche on the Dublin stage at the Abbey, Gaiety, Olympia and Gate.
Her first major film role was in Pat Murphy’s groundbreaking 1981 film Maeve, about feminism and Northern Irish identity.
While she has received three Olivier Award nominations for Rutherford and Son (1995), The Little Foxes (2002) and The Ferryman (2018), the 70-year-old is equally at home on stage or screen.
The first person on our executive producer wish list was Colin Farrell and it couldn’t have gone smoother.
— TJ O'Grady Peyton
TV roles have been varied, including parts in Doctor Who and Cracker, and most recently as Concepta O’Hare in the BBC ‘soft crime’ drama Hope Street, filmed in Donaghadee.
Always one to embrace a challenge, in 2021 Brennan brushed up on her Irish to portray retired police officer Labhaoise in Doineann, alongside Peter Coonan.
Equally, she relished tackling the role of blind yet fiercely independent widow Victoria in Room Taken.
“You apply your imagination to imagining how this woman deals with everyday life without sight,” Brennan explains.
“She lives on her own, and she’s recently lost her husband, and so she’s grieving and she’s lonely. But there is a great attraction when you read a character who has a wonderful spirit, an optimistic take on life and great wit.”
Brennan also sought inspiration through meeting Dolores Cullen, an amateur actor with drama group Sightless Cinema, who helped her to understand more about living with blindness.
Like Victoria, Dolores lives independently and feels her way around her home.
“Dolores has been blind for many years. Just meeting her fed me enormously, because she also had a great spirit and terrific positivity about her, with a desire for fun and to use her own wit and intelligence in talking and listening to people.”
Brennan, of course, used her own imagination to get into the character of Victoria and spent the first day on set choreographing how she might move about the house.
Produced by Colmán Mac Cionnaith, Room Taken has already won 37 awards at film festivals all over the world.
To help boost its profile, the film-makers sought out a well-known executive producer - and who better than Golden Globe-winning Irish star Colin Farrell?
“The first person on our executive producer wish-list was Colin Farrell and it couldn’t have gone smoother,” explains director TJ O’Grady Peyton.
“He saw the film, and he was moved by it. When we spoke to him about trying to reach a wider audience he was passionate enough to say ‘I want to help you with that mission’.”
Funded by Screen Ireland, Room Taken navigates themes such as the hardship faced by asylum seekers and the lack of housing and services for the unhoused population in Ireland.
The latter is a topic O’Grady Peyton feels passionately about:
“I volunteered for a year with a charity called the Simon Community, in a social club where people who are sleeping rough could get tea and coffee and sandwiches or soup.
“Every year, the numbers of homeless rise and rise. Definitely it’s a timely tale, and I hope Room Taken can contribute to that conversation.”
While the theme of grief resonates throughout the short film, it’s the exploration of our universal need for human connection that the actors feel is most prevalent.
“Human connection is a very important part of this film for me,” ponders Brennan.
“Victoria is lonely. She’s lost her life companion and eventually finds friendship with Isaac.
“So, for me, one of the big things about this film is human connection, kindness and trust in other human beings,
“Loneliness is a bit dehumanising, and togetherness is validating. We’re a social species, we’re meant to experience things together.”
“Sometimes it’s not even verbal support, just the sheer presence of another person in the room that makes a difference,” adds Adewusi, who was born in Nigeria but grew up in Ireland.
Delayed due to the Los Angeles wildfires, the nominations for the 97th Academy Awards will be announced on January 23.
Another Irish film, the Portia Buckley-directed Clodagh, is also currently shortlisted in the Best Live Action Short Film category.
Both it and Room Taken will be hoping for a nomination and the chance to follow in the footsteps of 2023 winner An Irish Goodbye on March 2.
If Room Taken does get an Oscar nod, one member of the cast and crew who is unlikely to be travelling to LA for the awards ceremony is Brennan.
“The last time I went to New York, I went on a ship and came back on a ship,” she laughs.
