Terry McMahon and Brian O'Malley, most recent Tiernan MacBride Screenwriting Award,have gone on to scoop the prestigious Hartley-Merrill International Screenwriting Award at Cannes. They talked to Paul Farren about their experience and the future of their award winning script Sisk.

Paul: Sisk is the result of a writing partnership but you began the project on your own. How long were you working on it before collaborating with Terry?

Brian: Terry came along in November and I had started it two Decembers before that. I spent six months writing the first draft and about a year on the second. When I say a year; I work as a commercials director so there was probably eight or nine months work in total before I met Terry, at that stage the story was worked, the script had problems but we had a good story and that was the thing that drew Terry to it. The specifics of the story have changed but the plot, the character's journey is exactly the same as it was in draft one.

What else got you interested in collaborating with Brian?

Terry: Firstly it was a genre piece, the idea of having to learn the discipline of the genre was great. I immediately saw the mythology he was talking about, stepped into that river of history of English and American movies and transplant that into a contemporary Irish setting.

The full article is printed in Film Ireland 106.