Prestigious award nomination for Lakyle school

LAKYLE National School in Whitegate has been nominated for an award for their film on the centenary of their school last year.
A section of their documentary on the 100 year history of the school has been nominated for an award at the National FÍS Film Festival, which takes place next Wednesday November 3 at the Helix in Dublin City University.
The 40 pupils from the school and their teachers will attend the event.
Speaking about the DVD, school principal Mary Flanagan said, “The whole school was involved in making the DVD and we’re all going up to Dublin for the Fís Film Festival. We are all delighted. It was a community project and a local filmmaker Klaus Kappis carried out the filming for us. It started out that it would be just to record the birthday celebrations but then we decided to make a DVD. I asked Klaus would he do it and he was instrumental in the whole thing and put a lot of work in on it.”
Part of the film was recorded on Holy Island. The pupils also had a portion recorded at Williamstown and past pupils were also interviewed. There was a local screening when the film was completed and the DVD was made available to the local community.
“It’s a small community here and we sold 100 DVDs so the community really supported it. All the children enjoyed it. The senior classes were heavily involved as they interviewed people from the community. We are delighted with this nomination and proud of the children and we are grateful to the community for all their support and without them we wouldn’t have been able to do it,” Ms Flanagan stated.
President Mary McAleese will be attending the event and will be joined by another very special guest, Cathal Gaffney, award-winning producer from Brown Bag Films for the event. RTÉ’s children’s presenter, Sinéad Kennedy, will MC the event.
Over 700 children and their teachers are expected to attend from around the country with 26 awards being presented to schools and their children to celebrate their outstanding film achievements in areas such as animation, acting, editing and direction.
Anne White, national co-ordinator with the National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE), said, “There are no limits to the children’s imagination and creativity when involved in the filmmaking process. This year there is such a wide range of films – historical, comedy, horror and cinn as Gaeilge freisin.”
She also acknowledged the efforts made by the teachers involved in FÍS who she said “have risen to the challenge by providing such wonderful creative learning opportunities for their children”.
FÍS is an initiative of the Department of Education and Skills managed by the National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE) in collaboration with the Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art Design and Technology (IADT) and this is its sixth year hosting this event.