Fragmented - An Interview With George Lynch

Now, we met for the first time in Dún Laoghaire.

As you know, we host the, the, uh, the on- or the, uh, the live event down in Dún Laoghaire.

I would've seen this film, um, a while, a while back, uh, probably during the summer when I first had a look at it, and I was really, really taken by this film.

So this film is called Fragmented.

It's been nominated for two awards this year.

It's been nominated for a best student film award, and it's also been nominated for a best costume design award.

Um, I really was fascinated by this storyline because of I'm, I'm big into history, George, I have to say, and when I'm... just before I go to bed at night, I'll probably flick across the channels and if I see the History Channel and something's really interesting on, that's it, I'm gone for another hour.

So this one sort of really caught my eye.

But maybe, um, maybe you could tell us what is Fragmented, and how would you describe the po- uh, the story to everybody?

I, I would, I would love to do that, Dave.

So the story of Fragmented, it follows, um, an Irish family in 1919 after the end of the First World War.

We follow the story through the perspective of a young girl called Lily, uh, where her father has now returned from his service in the British military.

He has now come back home, and she hasn't seen her father in years, so she's excited for him to come back and she holds onto this, um, perspective, this, uh, ideal version of her father, the way he was before he went to war.

But she isn't ready for how much change he went through during his time.

Obviously the, uh, psych, not just the psychological ramifications through, uh, shell shock or what we call today PTSD, but also the physical changes as well, where he wears now this prosthetic mask that, uh, covers his, uh, face.

And, uh, that aspect of the story was inspired by this real practice that was developed during the First World War, developed by sculptors Anna Coleman Ladd and Francis Derwent Wood, where they started out in the medical field, but then during the First World War they started developing these prosthetic masks to cover, um, the faces of disfigured veterans in the attempt to try to reintegrate them back into, uh, a shelter civilian society.

But obviously the story explores, like you could try, you could cover the physical scars of war, but the mental toll still remains, and that's just what the characters, uh, struggle with in the, in the story.

Yeah.

It's, uh, beautifully shot in black and white as well, George.

It was a good choice to do it like that.

Um, the production values are very, very good, and y- your cast are, are quite strong.

Um, I, I've seen this before, as I mentioned before, on the History Channel about some...

I mean, it was a dreadful war, the First World War, it really was, because it's unlike any, any war that we, we've, we've seen, you know, over the...

Hand-to-hand combat, some of the weapons were qu- quite crude and cruel.

Um, you know, chemical warfare was u- biological warfare was used, you know.