EIGHT years ago Oorlagh George and her father, Terry, picked up the Oscar for the best short film for The Shore, which was filmed on Killough beach.
The 39 year-old has returned to the coastal village as director of her first full-length feature film, Stranger with a Camera.
While both Oorlagh and her father are Belfast-born, Killough is very viewed as a second home for the family.
Oorlagh and her crew spent last Thursday filming inside and outside the old Downpatrick Social Security office in Mount Crescent for the movie.
The now disused office accommodation was transformed to look like a rural station used by the PSNI.
One of the scenes being filmed was a man and a woman being doorstepped for an interview by a pushy journalist as they left the police station.
Filming had previously taken place over the last few weeks in Killough, where she used to spend time at the family’s holiday cottage.
Set in a fictional coastal village in Northern Ireland in 2013, the story centres around a troubled American teenager stranded there after her father is arrested for a murder tied to the IRA 17 years previously.
Compelled by her father’s secrecy, she teams up with a delinquent cousin to pry their family secrets from the cold dead hands of the past.
It stars Ellie Bamber (BBC’s Les Misérables and The Trial of Christine Keeler) in the lead role as Gráinne, alongside Owen McDonnell (Killing Eve), Michael Shea (Derry Girls), and Brian Milligan (Hunger).
Oorlagh explained: “This is a story about the power of empathy among young people in Northern Ireland, as they try to make sense of a history shrouded in secrets and transcend the boundaries and burdens they’ve inherited.
“Gráinne grows up with a trauma that doesn’t have a story. This film is her fight to understand the events that shaped her life, in order to move on.”
The storyline has some parallels with her own life as before her family moved to New York, her father was sentenced to six years in the former Long Kesh prison after being arrested in 1975 on suspicion of carrying a weapon.
Apart from writing and filming The Shore at Killough, which was produced by Oorlagh, Terry early earned his film-making credentials as the screenwriter for the film, In the Name of the Father (1993), based on the story of the Guildford Four and wrote the screenplay and directed Some Mother’s Son (1996).
He has since gone on to write other major films such as The Promise in 2016.
While Oolagh worked alongside her father in some of his productions, she has branched out on her own and is currently developing a television drama called Faultline, which she co-created with The Wire writer, Edward Burns.
It took six years for Oorlagh George’s screen play of Stranger with a Camera to make it into production. The project has been developed through Sundance Institute’s Screenwriting and Directing Labs.
Oorlagh is producing the film with Mary Ann Marino (Mars Attacks!, Permanent), Molly Egan (We Need to Talk About Kevin), and John Wallace (Rialto, Songs for While I’m Away).
The film is supported by Sundance Institute, Northern Ireland Screen and Screen Ireland, with additional grant support by The Utah Film Centre and Artemis Rising.