Donegal Town native Cecilia McAllister is one of the final five nominees selected by RTE to take part on the special ‘Story Land’ project.
The scheme will see the five film makers commissioned to make web comedies for the internet.
Cecilia was selected out of 500 people competing to direct a short story aired online on RTE’s website.
Cecilia told the Post: “I was delighted to have the opportunity to participate in such a project because you get to see the audience respond. You are making the drama at the same time the audience is watching. It allows you to see what works and what doesn’t. The comedy is called ‘Daily Strife’.”
Cecilia, sister Tracey and their younger brother Johnny all lived abroad growing up as their father from Donegal Town was a civil engineer and the family was frequently away.
The family spend time in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and the USA among other locations. The children were sent to an American school during that time.
Sister Tracey told the Post that at the time, some of the countries they lived in were quite ‘basic’ and they spent some of their time watching videos. It was the only way to know what was going on out there” Tracey told the Post.
All three children ended up working in the film industry, directing or script writing.
Speaking about her current project for RTE, Cecilia told the Post that now, they need all the support they can get to continue on:
“We’ve made the first episodes now but if Donegal doesn’t get behind us in the competition we won’t get funding to make anymore. We would really like to set and shoot the next episode in Donegal as every time I have worked here I’ve been amazed how great the people are and just how amazing Donegal looks on screen.”
People can go to the website http://www.rte.ie/storyland/dailystrife/index.html and start voting from 10 AM on Friday 5th February.