Gabriel’s Trumpet - PRESS KIT
Amidst a crumbling Belfast, Gabriel’s Trumpet is a hi-8 mystery short film that plunges into the disappearance of a young man and the pursuit that follows…
Please find our full press kit below. Featuring director/producer statements, cast/crew bios, unit stills, a featured scene and more!
Directed by
THOMAS BENNETT
thomasbennett966@gmail.com
A multidisciplinary British/Irish artist focused on Hi-8 tape and Super 8, Thomas launched his directorial filmography in 2021 at Raindance Film Festival with ‘The Seven Signs’.
In 2024 Thomas released 'In Wake of John Doyle', a co-directed/wrote/produced piece alongside his creative partner Niall McCloskey. The short endured a successful festival run; going on to screen at DIFF (Dublin International Film Festival) 2025, Belfast Film Festival 2024, Off-Screen Film Festival 2025 and was long-listed for The British Short Film Awards 2024.
‘Now That I Look’ (2024) is his most recent micro-short having premiered in April 2025 as part of Cinemagic at QFT in Belfast. The work is an exploration of the vacant voids, gaps and holes of his home city of Belfast.
As Belfast sinks deeper into the hands of rioters, an alienated young man receives devastating news. In his refusal to accept death, Robin begins to scour the city for his missing companion. Whilst friends, Grace and Eoin, struggle to comprehend his actions, tensions throughout the city bubble. All the while a mysterious visitor begins his own journey to watch the decay of the world around him, trumpet in hand.
Gabriels Trumpet is an uncompromising, complex, experimental Irish drama.
Through grief, mourning, and alienation Belfast is examined amidst the fears and uncertainties of the modern world, steeped in the past and looking to the future.
Title: Gabriel’s Trumpet
Genre: Experimental/Drama
Country: Ireland
Language: English
Duration: 19:59
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Frame Rate: 25fps
Shooting Format: Hi-8: Sony CCD-TR511E, Digital: Canon C200 4K 12bit Canon RAW.
Exhibition Format: 4K Digital
Sound: 5.1, Stereo
Director Statement
‘As global developments plunge deeper into territories unknown, Belfast rumbles on, no-different and changing fast…’
Over long walks across Belfast in the last few years, thoughts of this kind have percolated through my head. Since moving to the city I have sought to make a film that captures its modern landscape and preoccupations diverting from the traumatic and well trodden narratives that so often plague this setting. The modern world of Belfast and Ireland as a whole, is one concerned with issues global, local, of the past, future, and of infinite variety. Our film scene needs to reflect this.
Is modern tech the death of us all? Why has immigration to Ireland caused such radical backlash? Am I full of micro plastics? This cluster of anxieties have become the backbone to our lives, and the setting for Robin’s hunt for a missing friend. Loss in the centre of a world that refuses to sit still, unable to explain itself. Old punctuates the new and lost myths lurk in our landscape, be this ancient standing-stones or the hidden rivers under our streets. As ideas formed and a script appeared, the core practical question remained, how to capture this story in the environment it depends upon?
Off the back of previous successes with 2024 Hi-8 tape co-creation ‘In Wake Of John Doyle’, my itch for the medium has only grown. Gabriel’s Trumpet was the perfect opportunity to return to the camcorder and the only feasible way to do it justice. A private story in public places.
Hi-8 allowed us to shoot in collaboration with the public, keeping us discreet and achieving the perfect spying eye.
This “spying” nature, was essential to Robin’s anxieties and his experiences within the fallout of loss as well as our position in a world of constant camera usage. I wanted the camera to involve its physical presence in the world of Robin and his friends. Something more than an abstract tool for the audience to depend on, the camera becomes the eyes that permeate the work, be this the eyes of the public, the government, family or something unseen. The bedrock of Gabriel’s Trumpet is just this, and Hi-8 tape was the tool to push it across that line.
Working and filming predominantly in the street initially presented itself as a style riddled with difficulties.
It is a huge credit to our cast and crew therefore that filming in what became a semi-live performance, open to change, immersed in reality, transformed the experience into something raw and otherwise unattainable. The script blossomed and expanded in this public setting, which then enriched the editing process into something vastly more creative and flexible than we’d previously experienced. The process allowed us to take the mysteries of the city and our narrative down new and intriguing avenues. What’s more, it helped birth something refreshingly unique. The Belfast film scene is one that we as a crew and cast deeply support and depend upon. It is an honour therefore to contribute to this scene with a highly personal take on the modern world of Belfast and present it to audiences nationally and internationally.
Whilst the apocalypse swells and brews around us, our lives continue. Buildings stay standing. Routines repeat. Voices yap into their morning coffees.
Watching and waiting.
Thomas Bennett, Director / Writer
KEY CREW BIOS
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Niall McCloskey
PRODUCER (He/Him)
Niall McCloskey is a Belfast based producer who has been working alongside Tom on several projects including co-writing/co-directing and producing the Award winning short; ‘In Wake of John Doyle’.
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LAUREN BATEMAN
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER (She/Her)
Lauren is an aspiring producer hailing from West Cork, having worked across twenty short films and several feature productions. Motivated, hands-on and organised, Lauren helped structure our second unit.
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Samuel GR Morgan
COMPOSER (He/Him)
Sam is an award nominated Northern Irish composer based in London. Sam’s work has been heard across countless shorts including two selected for Cannes Film Festival 2023 - ‘Lemonade Stand-Off’ and ‘Dead Funny’.
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AERIS VERMELL
COSTUME DESIGNER (They/Them)
Aeris is a Belfast based costume designer working in the Northern Irish Film and TV industry. Aeris has worked across a variety of productions in the costume department. They have also designed for Northern Irish indie features.
Producer Statement
From the beginning of this project’s inception it was important to us, as Belfast based filmmakers, to show a side of the city that isn’t explored on the screen. To show a different, odd, eclectic and fiercely indie side to film in Belfast. It was key for us to not only be true to ourselves as Irish filmmakers but to be true to this city we love, all while looking at it in an entirely unique lens; easy peasy, right?
It is for this reason that I personally feel that Gabriel’s Trumpet soars. There truly is nobody else that can capture this side of not only Belfast but Northern Ireland as a whole in the way this short has done other than Tom and the team we’ve built.
The character of Robin, performed by newcomer Mercer MacWillliam Hughes, as well as Eoin and Grace performed by Steven Calvert and Holly Hannaway, are all brilliantly brought to life. All members of our ensemble tackled an aspect of street theatre in their performances, to be thrust into the real world around them and to handle every moment that the public played into scenes takes nothing short of exceptional skill and understanding of the material. These fierce performances elevate the script to entirely new heights.
While Robins side of the narrative features a distinct reflection on grief and loss, the process of trying to understand why such a tragedy happened, it is also a poignant narrative theme. The themes of death and loss are ones that carry on from the work that Tom and myself have been releasing over the past two years of working together. Gabriel’s Trumpet looks at not only a personal death but the death of the world around us; a paradoxical, unravelling world that with each new breaking news article feels like it’s crumbling even more into the ruins.
This hasn’t even touched on the elements of otherworldly religion that has been worked throughout the piece, the script taking great inspiration from not only the bible story of Gabriel’s Trumpet but from Irish religious fears, all wrapped up in a distinctly written, shot, performed and produced film.
The characters of this piece all fall into their own subset of the five stages of grief. Eoin is in denial to the situation, Kathy lashes out at Robin in anger. Robin is a man stuck bargaining, Michael watches the depression of the world crumbling around him, all while Grace sits in a place of acceptance to what has happened.
These characters are not stereotypes, none of them play into traditional narrative tropes. They’re simply people, Northern Irish people, and this is a fact I am incredibly proud of throughout both the script and through our entire production. We assembled an incredibly diverse, distinctly Northern Irish cast and crew and this is something I feel should be celebrated.
We set out to make a film that shows a different, odd, eclectic and fiercely indie side to film in Belfast and I think we may have just succeeded. In a world moving forward towards AI, tariffs and trade wars it feels like now more than ever we need the cinema, we need distinct voices, new narratives and an escape from the terror world around us.
As the world crumbles, art endures.
Niall McCloskey, Producer
ENSEMBLE CAST
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Mercer MacWilliam Hughes
ROBIN
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STEVEN CALVERT
EOIN
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HOLLY HANNAWAY
GRACE
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JOSEPH SHARKEY
MICHAEL
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ANNA MCALORUM
KATHY
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BEKITHEMBA MBONDIYA
DARREN
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GRACE FEENEY
GABRIEL
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LAURA DEE
PRAM LADY
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DANIEL GRAY
VOICE OF PETER
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MAIREAD MCKINLEY
VOICE OF JOYCE
FEATURED CLIP
PROPOSED FESTIVAL RUN
Gabriels Trumpet is currently gearing up to begin its festival run. An exciting period in any short films journey is getting it seen by an audience!
Internally, we are looking towards both an Irish and Worldwide premiere at the esteemed Galway Film Fleadh in July 2025.
From here, we have a proposed festival run that includes further screenings in both the North and South of Ireland as well as looking towards screening internationally across England, America, Canada and across Europe.
Gabriels trumpet (2025)
Written and Directed by Thomas Bennett
Produced by Niall McCloskey
Associate Producer - Lauren Bateman
Featuring
Robin - Mercer MacWilliam Hughes
Eoin - Steven Calvert
Grace - Holly Hannaway
Michael - Joseph Sharkey
Kathy - Anna McAlorum
Darren - Bekithemba Mbondiya
Gabriel - Grace Feeney
Deeley - Kieran Corrigan
Pram Lady - Laura Dee
Also featuring Daniel Gray as the voice of Peter, Mairead McInley as the voice of Joyce.
Director of Photography - Thomas Bennett.
1st Assistant Director - Niall McCloskey ADG.
Costume Designer - Aeris Vermell
Production Sound Mixer - John Panayotou
Gaffer - Peter Johnston
Trainee Assistant Director - Matthew Branagh
Unit Stills - Nathan Magee
DoP (2nd Unit) - CJ Snodden
Assistant Camera (2nd Unit) - Samuel Mair
Standby Props / HMU assistant (2nd Unit) - Abigail G. Harkin
Unit Stills (2nd Unit) - Rachael Robinson
Edited by Thomas Bennett and Niall McCloskey
Original Score by Samuel GR Morgan
Post Sound Mixer - Jim McMorrow
Featuring Music from Jonah Hartley and Lisa Clinch
Format - HI-8 & Digital.
