Short Summary
I hope you are well in these challenging times. For the past two years, we’ve worked hard to create a new feature length documentary film entitled: A Call to Arts. The film is about Helen Hooker and Ernie O’Malley in Ireland and their youngest son Cormac’s journey to discover their incredible legacy. I’m honored to have the opportunity to invite you to a special premiere screening to discover this intimate portrait of a couple who made it their work to see Ireland not for how it was, but for what it could become.
Beginning in the mid-1930s, Helen and Ernie sought a new artistic vision of Ireland and preserved it in words and images. Their vision is a hauntingly beautiful view of Irish life that shows both an urgency to find personal and political freedom through art and an eagerness to rediscover the soul of a country free from the harms of imperial control.
In the film, you will see Helen Hooker’s photographs depict a newly independent Ireland, for the first time, from a woman’s point of view. You will hear the words of Ernie O’Malley, the most literary Irish voice to emerge from the fight for Irish independence. You will meet some of Ireland’s leading artistic and cultural figures including Paddy Moloney, John Behan, Dr. Edward Walsh, Trish Lambe and Tanya Kiang, as well as Ernie and Helen’s three children, and others as they uncover the meaning of this archive and offer critical commentary.
In making the film we drew upon a collection of 20,000 photographs, benefited from the results of numerous major exhibitions, and scoured newly discovered letters that present a portrait of Helen and Ernie in Ireland. It’s only now, after many decades of effort by Cormac, that we have been able to create a film exploring who Helen and Ernie were, what challenges they faced and the personal meaning of the works they created. After almost two years of work, the film is nearly complete.
After viewing a draft of the film, Connecticut Public Television is excited to broadcast A Call to Arts in the fall of 2020. Today, I write to ask for your help to fund the finishing of this ambitious project that Helen and Ernie began when they set to work documenting and discovering Ireland.
In return, we have unique gifts to offer you. First is an invitation to the August 2020 Supporters World Premiere of A Call to Arts in a safe online environment. Additionally, for the first time Races at Carramore, a 1938 photographic print by Helen Hooker and taken in Ireland is available for you to own and display at home. We are also saying thank you with select nonfiction and photographic titles from the O’Malley library personalized by Cormac.
It has taken the work of a diverse group of scholars, artists and writers to explore and map out the efforts of Helen Hooker and Ernie O’Malley. It has taken a son’s determination to measure their lives, honestly and openly, to see who his parents were and discover the meaning of the work they created. It takes your contribution to get us across the finish line. Please help us reach our goal of $20,000 by making a generous gift. We want to share A Call to Arts with you and the world. Take a look at our online trailer for the film on acalltoarts.com and I hope you will be as excited as I am and will join Cormac and I for the upcoming Supporters Online World Premiere of this new feature length documentary film.
Best,
Chris Kepple, Director
What We Need & What You Get
We need $20,000 to pay for the last stage of editing as well as music and footage licensing fees.
You get: A ticket to the Supporters World Premiere, a print from the O'Malley Archive Collection of Photographs of Ireland in the 1930's & 1940's and or a book from the O'Malley Library.
The Impact
The time has come to appreciate and celebrate the shared legacy of Ernie O’Malley and Helen Hooker. Let’s talk of and measure the meaning of Ireland in love and in revolution. Let’s hear the words of the most powerful literary voice to emerge from the fight for Irish freedom. Let’s see the photographs, that reveal for the first time, a free Ireland from a woman’s point of view. I would like to invite you to discover A Call to Arts, a new film that shares an intimate portrait of Helen Hooker and Ernie O’Malley.
Risks & Challenges
Irish Visions, Cormac O'Malley, the American Friends of the Arts in Ireland and the Irish American Cultural Institute have already invested over $60,000 into this project. We are close to completion, but we can't do it without a final push of support from you.
Other Ways You Can Help
If you can't make a gift, you can still help by checking out our website aCalltoArts.com and sharing it with others. You can also find us on Facebook and like and follow our a Call to Arts page there.
About the Director
I've been a producer and director of independent film projects since 2014. I'm excited that Connecticut Public Television has agreed to broadcast A Call to Arts in 2020. My past work has included a show I developed and directed for Colorado Public Television entitled Backcountry Gourmet. Also for Colorado Public Television, coming in 2020, I produced and directed an upcoming new program about composer and musician David Amram entitled Right on Time.
In 2018, along with Betsy Osha, I directed some short documentary style pieces on the photographer Rollie McKenna for the Stonington Historical Society to accompany an exhibit on her photography. I also enjoy shooting music and dance events and I was fortunate enough to work with the dancer Douglas Dunn, singer and dancer Nora Fox, and blues icon the Reverend Freakchild. I am a writer by trade with an MFA in Creative Writing from the Jack Kerouac School at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.
This campaign is vital to getting the funds necessary to finish my first feature length documentary film and to make the abridged 52 minute version intended for public networks here in the United States and in Ireland. By giving to this campaign, you will help to reveal a unique view of Ireland's past through the photography of Helen Hooker and the words of Ernie O'Malley, you will also make a huge difference in the life of an aspiring filmmaker!
