‘You will come out the other side’: this Irish video captures the mood of returning to society perfectly

Optimism and nerves are in the air as Phase 2 rolls on, and this ‘Almost There’ video captures mixed feelings perfectly.

“It’s all the little things you take for granted”, so begins Almost There, a new video collaboration between director Dave O’Carroll of The People We Meet and Dublin-based production companies Motherland and Event Junkies.

The uplifting video goes on to detail familiar scenes that used to play out across the country; bumping into friends when you haven’t arranged it, taking the DART, driving to Dingle for a weekend or just going for a pint with one of your mates.

As Phase 2 rolls on, businesses re-open and non-essential workers start working outside the home, Almost There reminds us to stop and think of the frontline workers once again.

As Liz Collins, the fourth voice from the Zoom video calls that provide the audio for the video asks, “How will we ever thank them? How do you say thanks to so many people?”

And how do we move forward to the other side? 

Initially it was Dave’s friends and family on the 30-minute interview Zoom calls, but then he saw Liz on the news. “I had met Liz before, so I just reached out saying ‘Your attitude is incredible, would you like to be involved?'”

Dave’s motivation behind the video was to document Covid-19, but not through empty streets. “It was important to use interviews, to get a real baromter about how people were/are feeling.

“Maybe it was my way of showing gratitude to frontliner workers. Liz’s section is really inspirational. I guess I wanted to get people to appreciate what they have and that attitude is very important.”

The clips are from previous projects and home videos of Dave O’Carroll, with more from Motherland & Event Junkies, who co-produced, plus new footage from when lockdown was eased, filmed at social distance.

Almost There is the 21st video in Dave O’Carroll’s The People We Meet project, a series of short documentaries about communities and creatives.

Others include A Different Poxy Breed IGTV, a WhatsApp interview about missing Ireland while working abroad, Broke IGTV, about the daily mental impact of being broke, and The Liberties, a moment in time of this rapidly changing Dublin neighbourhood. 

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