Directors’ Debuts Competition brings new discoveries: great movies of high artistic value and great filmmakers whose new ventures surprise not only the Jury members but all audiences around the world as well.

DATING AMBER

Director: David Freyne
Cinematographer: Ruairí O’Brien, ISC
Produced by: ATOMIC 80, Savage Productions
Country and year: Ireland, 2020

In the mid-1990s, small-town Ireland was a place without virtual connections and social media, when you literally had to meet someone face to face to get in their face or start a vicious rumour that would circulate through the school’s bloodstream. Eddie is a terribly shy lad who, despite always appearing sick, dreams of following in his father’s severe military footsteps. On the other hand, Amber is a stereotypical fatherless rebel with a penchant for The Clash’s punk ethos and a plan to leave for London and establish an anarchist bookshop. Oh, right, they are also both gay but not yet ready to come out of the closet. The truth is, some days they are not even prepared to admit it to themselves. And, well, the Christian sex-ed programmes they have to watch at school don’t help – neither do their sex-obsessed peers. That is why, one day, Eddie and Amber begin to pretend they are a heterosexual couple, which might work in theory, but will provoke a series of unexpected complications.