The Film: Do Armed Robbers Have Love Affairs?

An intense, gripping short film exploring the emotions of three armed robbers as they contemplate the risk of a bank robbery. Nervous and unsure, they sit waiting in a car opposite the bank for dawn to approach and the security van to arrive. Lost in snatches of fond memory and chilling moments of recollection, each one is instinctively aware that the outcome of the event will be fatal.

Writer: Ronan Bennett and Seamas Keenan
Director: Brian Kirk
Producer: Pearse Moore
Cast includes: Sean McGinley, Sorcha Cusack, Paul Ronan & Gerard McSorley
Executive Producers: Robert Cooper, Gemma McMullan
Genre: Short Film - Part of Northern Lights series 5 for BBC Northern Ireland

The Writers: Ronan Bennett & Seamas Keenan

Ronan Bennett is a novelist and screenwriter. His film credits include Face (1997), directed by Antonia Bird, and A Further Gesture (1997), directed by Robert Dornhelm. Lucky Break, directed by Peter Cattaneo (The Fully Monty), will open in the US in August 2001 and in Britain in September.

Television credits include the award-winning Rebel Heart (BBC, 2000); A Man You Don't Meet Every Day (Channel 4, 1994); and Love Lies Bleeding (BBC, 1993). His latest novel, The Catastrophist (1998), was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize and is being developed for a feature film.

Seamas Keenan is an editor, author and screen-writer. Winner of the Brian Moore Short Story Award and The Stand International Poetry Competition.

The Director: Brian Kirk

Brian Kirk was born in Armagh. He studied English at the University of Edinburgh, then Film at the University of Bristol. While at Bristol he won 'Best Screenplay' in the Fuji Film Awards for Brotherly Love.

Since then he has directed Here's Johnny (nominated for 'Best New Director' by BAFTA Scotland); Baby Doll; Billy & Zorba ('Best International Short,' Brooklyn Film Festival); Gut Wallops; and most recently Do Armed Robbers Have Love Affairs? from a script by Ronan Bennett.

He has several feature film projects in development including, Passing Places by Stephen Greenhorn (Gabriel Films / BBC Scotland ); Middletown by Daragh Carville (Green Park Films / the Northern Ireland Film Commission); English As A Foreign Language, also by Daragh Carville (Green Park Films / The Irish Film Board / N.I. Lottery); and Blaz by Che Walker (Pagoda Films). He is also directing Hearts and Bones ( Series 2 ) for BBC One. He is represented by ICM (UK).

The Producer: Pearse Moore

Pearse Moore is Chief Executive of the Nerve Centre in Derry, Northern Ireland, a community based multi media arts centre. He is producer of the award winning animations MIDNIGHT DANCE, The GOBLIN MARKET and THE BEAUTIFUL ONES made as part of the Irish Film Board FRAMEWORKS animation scheme. He has produced short dramas for BBC, British Screen and UTV most recently THE DEVIL YOU KNOW directed by Colin Bateman.