a brief note about henry & sunny…

Henry & Sunny is a bittersweet love story about an unemployed clown called Henry who falls in love with a famous soap opera actress by the name of Sunny Carmichael. He writes her letters daily yet fear of rejection prevents him from disclosing his return address. Sunny reciprocates these feelings but is tragically unable to reach him. The film is set in a time of mass unemployment and recession where clowns have become the scapegoat for all of societies problems and so Henry's story becomes doubly tragic.

Henry & Sunny has become something of a labour of love. I wrote the script in 2002 whilst undertaking the MA in Film (Theory & Production) in D.I.T. and submitted it to numerous script award schemes over the years. The script was shortlisted for a Filmbase Award in 2005 but sadly didn't make the final three. In February last year my friend and colleague Orla Russell-Conway was awarded a disability grant from the Arts Council to fund her own camera kit under the provision that she make a short film. We decided to make Henry & Sunny.

We had no budget but we both loved the story and so we simply threw ourselves into it. Since then we've been lucky enough to work with a terrific bunch of people who feel just as strongly about the story as we do and so the Henry & Sunny family has grown to include Paulo Braganca, the Portuguese fado singer formerly signed to David Byrne's record label, Dorothy Cotter, an amazingly gifted actress and musician, the editor Nick Callan, composer Sam Jackson, and make-up artist Gemma Horan to name but a few. For a script that was written seven years ago the recession and the ensuing scramble to pin the blame on someone has left the film remarkably current. Indeed from the moment we decided to make this film the stars seem to have aligned themselves in our favour. We hope you enjoy watching it. We certainly enjoyed making it.

Fergal Rock,

Writer & Director