THE director of a superb new movie aimed at promoting road safety across Europe told donegaldaily.com today: “I’m delighted to have the world premiere in Donegal.”
Matteo Vicino, from Bologna in Italy, was speaking as his 90-minute feature-length movie ‘Young Europe’ had its world premiere at Century Cinemas in Letterkenny this morning.
“The movie excited my mind when we started out,” he told donegaldaily.com
“Without the young people of Donegal the movie would not have happened. We initially planned to film it in Dublin but Superintendent John McFadden persuaded us to come to Donegal instead.
“I’m so glad that we did, firstly for all the help we got from gardai and the students at LYIT who took part, but also because of the scenery. As soon as I saw Marble Hill, I thought ‘this is it’.”
Young actors Mark Griffin and Caitriona Loughlin (left) played lead roles in the movie which follows the lives of several young people in different parts of Europe with a very subtle road safety message.
Paul Hannigan from LYIT said: “This was an opportunity to get involved in working to highlight the issue of road safety and the students did a fantastic job in terms of participation and the acting. We are very proud of our role in this film.”
Young Europe was produced as part of ICARUS is an European Union Road Safety project initiated in 2008 and managed by the Italian police in partnership with the Department of Psychology at the University of Rome and the Traffic Police across 14 European countries.
The initiative was funded by the European Union and consisted of four separate phases:
* The establishment of a European network of national institutions focussing on road safety promotion.
* The conduct of a survey among at least 1,000 youngsters in the age group 17 to 21 in each of the 14 participating countries. From the survey data, the Dept of Psychology, University of Rome, produced a risk profile for each country and an overall risk profile of the combined countries’ results.
* The production of a training resource to address the issues raised in the survey and this was supplied to each participating country for their use.
* The production by a professional production company of a movie based on the data but written from a young persons perspective encouraging them to think about their behaviour and use of the roads. This movie was filmed across 4 of the participating countries, Italy, France, Slovenia and Ireland.
Retired Donegal Garda Supt John McFadden told donegaldaily.com at the premiere: “Part of the movie was filmed in Donegal over the months of March and April 2011 with the co-operation of the students and staff at Letterkenny IT and featured several locations throughout the county promoting the scenic beauty of Donegal.
“We were delighted to have the world premiere here in Donegal and we hope now that the movie is distributed widely throughout Europe.”
The movie is just that – a movie. It features a great storyline and is aimed at 17 to 21 year olds, though it certainly entertained the audience this morning.
Mayor Noel McBride told us: “It is fantastic that young people in this county played such an important role in this movie and that is a testament to Paul Hannigan and everyone at LYIT.
“Road safety is an issue which is very close to our hearts here; there is also the fact that the beauty of our county will be seen in this movie all over Europe.”
We will have pix from the Premiere on donegaldaily.com later.
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