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Director Therese wins first Peggy Walsh memorial award

Therese Dalton.

David LoobyNew Ross Standard

A New Ross filmmaker has won the inaugural Peggy Walsh bursary –named after the Rosbercon woman who captured so much of New Ross life through the lens of her camera over the years, including the visits of two Kennedys.

Therese Dalton won the award for an innovative film captured in Super 8 film in San Francisco many years ago, featuring a yellow frisbie.

Linda Curtin from Screen Wexford said: “We are delighted to have come across Therese’s beautiful filmmaking in her application. She exhibited many parallels to Peggy’s work in terms of aesthetic and outlook.

“Like Peggy, Therese is a true artist with an interest in people and place and on that note, is also local to New Ross. We are excited to see what Therese creates as part of the bursary. Hopefully it will give her time and space to further explore her practice and also play with the medium of analogue film.

“The standard of the submissions for the award was very high and it was a difficult task to select the winner but we are glad to have so many other amazing filmmakers in the county now on our radar whom we hope to support in some way. Wexford is awash with creativity and what Screen Wexford seeks to do is identify, nurture and cultivate this creative talent.”

Therese said she became aware of Peggy’s found footage of the JFK visit to New Ross in 1963 and was approached to arrange it into a sequence for the world unveiling at the launch of last September’s Kennedy Summer School.

She added some related footage and created a wonderful video which was broadcast around the world. Therese said she loved the way Peggy’s film looked.

“Peggy shot on Super 8 and I would also shoot on Super 8, whereas most people shoot on digital. Super 8 is much more reactive to light chemically so you get these luminescent tones.”

Her three and a half minute film features characters receive the thrown frisbie in different settings. Her bursary will see her awarded €2,000, plus €1,000 in rented camera equipment, along with mentorship for one year.

“That is what attracted me to the project. I will work with cinematographer John Conroy who worked on Broadchurch and Luther.”

The journalism graduate worked lecturing film in San Francisco and now runs the County Wexford Youth Film Project throughout Wexford.