DIGS FOR PENNIES | Omeleto

From the creator

A boxer earns money. It's post-famine Ireland in the early 1900s, where alcoholic bare-knuckle boxer Dan is trying to eke out enough money to emigrate to America and escape a place that seems to offer nothing for him. He and his manager and best friend Matty travel the countryside, competing in ramshackle bouts for mere penny bets. Matty arranges fights and collects bets while Dan fights, often escaping the irate gatherings by the skin of their teeth. But despite the constant fog of drunkenness, Dan soon begins to suspect that Matty is ripping him off, hiding some of his earnings from him. The confrontation becomes about more than money, though -- and comes at just about the most inopportune time for both boxer and manager. Writer/director Evin O'Neill, along with co-writer Dara O'Neill, has fashioned a handsomely filmed Irish short that highlights both the beautiful Irish countryside and the hardscrabble life of the time, where bare-knuckled fights become piecemeal entertainment. Viewers would be forgiven in thinking that the film is a lushly appointed historical drama at first, with its gorgeous cinematography and elegant camerawork serving as a somewhat ironic backdrop for an ugly, brutal milieu. But as the storytelling proceeds, the lens gradually hones in on the dynamic between Dan and Matty. At first, it seems to be a bond of a somewhat professional nature, or perhaps a troubled soul and an enabler. But their witty, often spiky banter reveals something closer and

Published 2019-11-12 · Watch on YouTube ↗
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