Dermot Diskin has been working in film editing since 1989, starting as an assistant on films such as ‘The Commitments’ and ‘In the Name of the Father’. He cut his first feature ‘Sweety Barrett’ in 1997 and since then has cut many features and TV dramas including ‘Man About Dog’, ‘The Mighty Celt’, ‘Prosperity’ and ‘Kings’. In recent times he has cut the immensely popular RTE series ‘Love/Hate’
He has received an astonishing 7 IFTA nominations for Best Editing, winning the IFTA award for ‘Dead Bodies’ in 2003 and again for ‘Kings’ in 2008
We are delighted Dermot is taking part in our second In Conversation event on Tuesday the 26th November at 8:00pm at Brookes Hotel, Drury Street, Dublin.
Here’s a look at some of his work
FEATURE FILMS
Sweety Barrett 1997
Directed by Stephen Bradley
When Sweety Barrett loses his job at a travelling circus he arrives in the port of Dockery, looking for work. His naïve and simple nature makes him easy prey in this corrupt town of smugglers dominated by the vicious detective Mannix Bone. Sweety strikes up a friendship with a six-year-old boy called Conor whose father Leo resumes a vendetta with Bone. Just when it seems that Bone is getting away with murder, Sweety exacts a spectacular revenge, which transforms him into a redeeming hero for the whole town.
On the Edge
Directed by John Carney
Within a space of 24 hours, Jonathan Breech (Cillian Murphy) attends his father’s funeral, gets high, steals a car, picks up someone else’s girlfriend, dumps her on the side of the road and then drives himself off a cliff. Having suffered no more than a broken finger, he is faced with either a spell in prison or a stay in a psychiatric hospital. Donning blinkers and pyjamas, he puts himself into the care of Dr Figure (Stephen Rea), making it clear he’s there for a holiday and not an evaluation. But as Jonathan reluctantly agrees to attend Dr Figure’s therapy sessions, and comes into contact with fellow patients Rachel (Tricia Vessey) and Toby (Jonathan Jackson), he begins to rethink his attitude on life.
Puckoon
Directed by Terrence Ryan
It’s 1924 and the boundary commission from Britain and Ireland is deciding on the new border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. After months of haggling over every inch of territory, the commissioners are forced to finish the job by hand, when a bicycle accident destroys the surveyors’ equipment. With all the participants holding the pencil and much pushing and shoving, the border finds its way down the middle of Puckoon, dividing house from outhouse, man from wife, pub chairs from bar, church from cemetery. Our hero, Dan Madigan, wakes up from his indolence to find the beer cheaper on the wrong side of the pub and a border patrol demanding passports. Puckoon will never be the same again and something has to be done…
Based on Spike Milligan’s book, Puckoon is a politically true, politically incorrect and profoundly funny tale.
Goldfish Memory 2003
Directed by Liz Gill
GOLDFISH MEMORY” is a light-hearted look at the dangers and delights of dating in contemporary Dublin. When Clara sees her boyfriend Tom kissing Isolde, it sets off a chain reaction of romances and heartbreaks until the entire cycle has turned full circle, each character trying to solve the pressing question of what is the perfect relationship…? Some favour marriage, others a week-at-a-time arrangement. The only thing they can all agree on is that love is the one thing we can’t live without.
Falling in love, out of love and making the same mistakes all over again – all of us say we learn from heartbreak, but how many of us really change? And do we want to?
Exploring the comical nature of love, straight, gay and in-between, “GOLDFISH MEMORY” brings life to the saying what goes around, comes around…and around…and around…
Dead Bodies 2003
Directed by Robert Quinn
Tommy is a young man who is not in a hurry and believes that life is there to be lived. His situation is abruptly changed by the return of his high maintenance, anti-everything, ex-girlfriend Jean. When, during one of their frequent ‘domestics’, she slips and is fatally injured, he confronts a dilemma far greater than he ever imagined. Ever fearful of the consequences, he decides to get rid of the body beneath the branches of a local wood – only to discover that he’s not the first. Once you step into darkness, it becomes difficult to see where you’re going.
Man About Dog 2004
Directed by Paddy Breathnach
A raucous comedy set in the world of greyhound racing, Man About Dog follows three Belfast losers who try to take on the bookies with no money and a greyhound who runs only when it suits him…
The Mighty Celt 2005
Directed by Pierce Elliot
The Mighty Celt is a drama film set in Northern Ireland. It stars Gillian Anderson, Robert Carlyle, Sean McGinley, Ken Stott and Tyrone McKenna. It is centred around greyhound racing in a Catholic community after the intercommunal “Troubles” have ended but where their legacy remains strong. The film was well received in Ireland, with Gillian Anderson receiving an IFTA Award for Best International Actress. The film’s title is based on the name of a comic book shown in the movie.
Boy Eats Girl 2005
Directed by Stephen Bradley
Boy Eats Girl is a comedy horror about a teenage date that goes disastrously wrong, bringing bloody mayhem to suburbia.
Kings 2007
Directed by Tom Collins
The story of a group of friends who emigrated to England in the late 70’s promising to return to Ireland rich and successful. Now 25 years on, only one of them is going home, Jackie – his body was found on the railway, crushed by a passing train. It is when his friends are forced to confront the possibility it was no accident, but suicide, that they must face up to the bitter chill of truth.
Tom Collins’s tender film is a beautifully shot depiction of the isolation felt by long-term migrants who struggle to find a place to call home. KINGS is a story of a lost generation, rich in humanity and emotion, and with a heart-breaking resonance not just for the Irish, in today’s changing world.
Shrooms 2007
Directed by Paddy Breathnach
A group of American teens go to rural Ireland in search of notoriously potent magic mushrooms. But legend has it that the area is haunted by the depraved ghosts of monks. After eating the mushrooms, the teenagers start to see terrifying visions and one of them turns up horrifically mutilated. Events spiral out of control as the friends are picked off one by one – but is this gruesome reality or a terrible hallucination?
Wake Wood 2009
Directed by David Keating
The villagers of Wake Wood perform an ancient ritual to bring the dead back to life for three days, in order to say farewell before their journey to the spirit world. A young couple beg the villagers to bring their daughter back but find themselves unable to lose her for a second time. Their attempts to keep her alive mean they must pay a terrible price.
Stella Days 2011
in the heart of County Tipperary in the 1950’s, Father Daniel Barry tackles a fundraising challenge – and satisfies a personal passion – by setting up a cinema in the village. He faces opposition from every side, from doubters, disapproving parishioners, and even his own crisis of conscience. Will he manage to resolve the conflicts between love and duty, hope and faith, the past and the future, Rome and Hollywood?
TV DRAMA
Showbands
Ireland, 1965. Everyone in the music business is raking in the cash. Everyone, that is, except Tony Golden. With only three months to pay off his bank debt, Tony’s beloved ballroom is on the line. His only chance is to turn Denise, a complete unknown, into a star.
Raw
Love/Hate
DOCUMENTARY
An Oíche a Gineadh m’Athair
Directed by Paddy Breathnach
In this beguiling documentary, filmmaker Paddy Breathnach (“I Went Down’, “Man About Dog”, “Shrooms”) uses his cinematic skill to give an intimate insight into the events that shaped the lives of his father, Diarmuid, and grandfather, also Pádraig Breathnach. The latter died prematurely when Diarmuid was only eight. Throughout his lifetime, Diarmuid had been left to ponder many questions regarding the seeming contradictions of his father’s life. The documentary became a quest by father and son to answer these.
Cinegael Paradiso
Directed by Robert Quinn
CINEGAEL is an independent cinema set up by filmmaker Bob Quinn in the 1970’s, in which his son, the director Robert Quinn, lived as a child. The film focuses on the contribution the cinema made to the cultural life of the community, but also to the Irish film industry itself, acting as a home for, and catalyst to, radical ideas and attitudes within the film industry at the time.
Dublin Editors 
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