RENOWNED for creating documentaries that challenge perceptions, draw attention to the underdog and transport viewers to places rarely seen on screen, Belfast filmmaker Brendan Byrne promises a new slate of feature documentary and drama projects as he launches his new solo production house, Cyprus Avenue Films.
"I thought it was time to branch out and do some stuff that was closer to my own heart," says Byrne, whose credits include Gaza, Maze and Bobby Sands: 66 Days.
"The last year has shown the power of film to educate, inform and help viewers forget their worries and societal problems. Whether it is online or on television, film has been an escape for us all over the previous months.
"I am keen to create films that intrigue, inspire and draw the attention of local and international audiences."
Byrne has been busy on several co-productions with Fine Point Films.
These include My Name is Bulger, about the family of infamous Irish American gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger which was released last week on US streaming service Discovery+, and Ryan McMullan: Debut.
This portrait of the up-and-coming Belfast singer-songwriter as he charts his path to international recognition will be shown at the Galway Film Fleadh next month and on BBC television later this year.
"I've reached a stage in my career where I want to branch out into other things that have really interested me," he says.
"I've just done a film for RTE, Colm Tóibín: On Memory's Shore, and found it fascinating spending time with him.
"I love to hang out with creative people like Colm and Ryan and get a window on how they work and what drives them to do what they do."
As creative director of Cyprus Avenue Films, Byrne says his guiding light when developing new projects, no matter what genre or subject, is acknowledging that "a great story is a great story".
But what exactly makes a great story?
"I wish I knew," he laughs. "It's often an instinctive thing. It's a story that hasn't been told before, and one which can move an audience."
Byrne, who is open to receiving pitches for new works, likens finding a winning plot or documentary idea to that of a songwriter finding inspiration for a hit single.
"It's a bit like a line coming into a songwriter's head at the most unusual of times - it's usually an organic and mysterious process."
Byrne is also very conscious of the need to access funding from international sources as a filmmaker and when considering new work adds that "a story should have legs beyond Irish TV".
"It's great to see Ireland being used as a location by foreign filmmakers; but most of that money is being funded from outside Ireland," he explains.
"Commercial films are not a dirty word; but I've no desire to make a Batman 5.
"However, I am aware that despite the quality of your project, it doesn't take long to max out on the biggest amount of Irish funding possible.
"Therefore, early on I ask myself if this story from a place far, far away would move an audience on the other side of the world.
"It's trying to find stories that have a bit of universality, that enrich or move audiences.
"I want people to be moved or enriched by bringing them to places they would never have seen but for you putting that story in front of them."
Having made a Netflix original and a CNN film, Byrne is very aware of American and worldwide funding and streaming opportunities.
"I hope in this new chapter I will continue to make largely international-based material for a bigger audience than just Ireland and the UK," he adds.
New projects in the pipeline include Children of Beirut, from the same team who made the award-winning Gaza, which showed the human face of life in the embattled Palestinian territory.
"It's a similar human portrait of people living their lives on the margins in what is the Middle East's busiest city," he says.
"I like to go places that the cameras don't often visit. Beirut is one such place. It's a city under threat, which we've only really seen on our screens last year because of the port explosion."
The 90-minute long feature documentary, for international film festival and cinema release, is already at an advanced stage.
"I hope to go there in a couple of months, but one of my colleagues who has spent a number of years living in Beirut has shot a significant amount of the film already," Byrne explains.
"We've seen the material and it's really astonishing visually and in some respects heart-breaking in terms of the lives some of these people live."
In 2019 Gaza became the first-ever northern produced documentary to compete at The Sundance Film Festival - does he hope to return to Utah with Children of Beirut?
"Sundance was a professional highlight for me. It's the most prestigious international film festival in the world in terms of documentaries. Any chance of getting back is what gets me out of bed in the morning," he laughs.
The Belfast man began in the industry over 30 years ago, working alongside enigmatic Hollywood filmmaker John T. Davis.
The highlight was joining him on a dangerous illegal freight train journey across America, jumping trains and scavenging for food, whilst making the 1992 film Hobo.
"That was an amazing growing-up, life-affirming and film-making experience. It also gave me a real appetite for storytelling," he recalls.
Byrne went on to make his first solo documentary in 1993, The Kickhams.
This exploration of political identity, told through the story of the Ardoyne GAA team he played for in his youth, was screened in film festivals and on Channel 4.
Byrne is also keen to rekindle his interests in drama. He previously produced Jump, based on the stage play by Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee and is currently working on an adaptation of the John McGahern novel That They May Face the Rising Sun.
"It's an opportunity to bring one of Ireland's greatest novels, in my view, to the big screen. It's about the lives of a small community who live around the lakes in Leitrim," says Byrne.
"It's a film which will really resonate with audiences because it's almost like documenting a community which lives in a permanent lockdown."
In complete contrast, he is currently co-producing Murder in the Badlands, a factual series which explores unresolved murder cases of women in Northern Ireland.
Due to air in early 2022 on the BBC, it highlights the disappearances of Tyrone teenager Arlene Arkinson, the 1974 murder of Portadown woman Marian Beattie and the 1988 murder of German backpacker Inga Maria Hauser.
