Speaking of harsher methods: in Brendan Canty's Christy we follow the titular character, a 17-year-old about to be 18, after he's kicked out of a foster home for beating a stepbrother. With nowhere to go he temporarily shacks up with his older brother, who is married and just has become a father. Tensions go up in the small family as Christy doesn't handle authority well, but at the same time he successfully melds into the old neighbourhood he used to be in as a small child. Slowly but surely, Christy becomes more rooted. But then he gets reacquainted with his old cousins, who are heavily into violence and crime. As his brother is trying to get Christy relocated, Christy needs to take a few important decisions on what he wants out of life, decisions he's so far been ill-equipped to deal with...
Brendan lets the whole narrative play out in one section of Cork, a drab part of town where everybody swears and the kids do drugs. Dumping a teenager with issues in there would seem to be the starting point of a downward spiral. But underneath the gruff exterior of the region there is a lot of love hidden, and Christy, both the film and the character, show off the resilience of the people there. Stellar acting of the entire cast, a lot of them kids, keeps everything looking real. And I do need to point out Danny Power, who plays Christy, as a talent to keep track off. Christy is initially not all that likeable and stoic, but once the cracks appear, so does the warmth, and Power handles the transformation well.
The main theme of the Film by the Sea Festival in Vlissingen this year was "hope". While it takes some time for that to seep into the story here, it is there, making this a fitting film for the festival. Brendan Canty's film is emotional rather than sentimental, and the occasional rays of sunshine feel wholly earned. Christy won a youth-jury prize in Berlin and that's not a surprise. Audiences in Vlissingen granted the film a 4.35 out of 5. Not bad for a debut!