Short film follows accidental romantics during lockdown

“A deeply personal film, and not something I expected myself to make,” is how actor and film-maker Michael-David McKernan describes How to Fall in Love in a Pandemic, a short documentary which will be screened online at the Galway Film Fleadh this Friday night.

It’s being shown as part of the Shorts Programme, one of the annual festival’s most popular strands. Coming in at just under 11 minutes, it’s a snapshot of an evolving relationship during a difficult and strange time.

Michael-David met fellow filmmaker Mimi Wilcox in Chicago in February of this year when the Meath man was visiting the Windy City for a film festival.

They connected via the dating app Tinder and spent a few glorious days together before he returned to Ireland. There was a definite spark but as his home is in Ireland and hers is in America, they decided that was that.

However, they stayed in touch via voice and text messages and on March 13, Mimi arrived in Ireland for a five-day holiday, planning to stay with Michael-David and his dog, Myla in his Dunboyne home. That was the day the country went into lockdown and her intended short stay became a far longer sojourn as her flight home was cancelled.

The two filmmakers who, as Mimi put it, “were pushed together at a time when most people are being kept apart”, did what filmmakers do. They recorded events on camera. Using their smartphones, they documented this strange new life as it unfolded, exploring how they felt about the situation

Directed by Michael-David and with a soundtrack by electronic musician, Dáithí, the resulting film explores their romance and also shows how people of this generation record their lives.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

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