Smiling Sadly are a new production company founded in 2006 by Mairtin de
Barra. We are award winning and our work has traveled festivals
world-wide. Mairtin has worked in the Irish Film and Television industry
for over 10 years. His credits as Location Manager include Studs (Feature Film), Bachelors Walk Series 1,2,3, Paths to Freedom, Fergus' Wedding, Dream Team, A BT Commercial, and he has worked in many other capacities on productions such as The General, A Love Divided, Mystic Knights of Tir na nOg. He is a 2007 graduate of the EAVE European Audiovisual Entrepreneur Post Graduate Certificate in Production. He graduated from D.I.T. in 1998 with a B.Sc. Degree in Communications. He also holds a certificate in Fundamentals of Film Production from U.C.D. in 1997. He has directed and produced two well-received and internationally broadcast music videos for the Frank and Walters - Miles and Miles (which was available as a download on Vodaphone and has recently picked up promotion and distribution from
Radar Music Videos in London) and City Lights, which won Best Music Video at the Inaugural Icewhole Technical Awards in London on the 13th October
08. It also screened at the London Irish Film Festival/Wylie O'Hagan Digital Short Festival (March 09). Both of these achieved substantial
airplay on RTE 2 , TG4, Channel 6 and channels further afield. He has just completed a music video for the band Nassau, which is a complete change of
style and involved a lot of green screen and visual effects which were created in-house. He has also directed a corporate film - Customer Care
(for Louth County Council). He recently line produced a TV series for RTE entitled Aisling's Diary - 40 x 3 minutes as well as the 25 minute
Christmas Special. He was awarded funding by filmbase and RTE for a short script he wrote entitled 'Tart' which has, to date, screened at the Boston
Irish Film Festival (November 08), the Lake County Film Festival (March 09), the Belfast International Film Festival (April 09), Porto 7s Film
Festival, Corona Fastnet Short Film Festival (where it was awarded Best Cinematography) and will also screen at the 2009 Galway Film Fleadh.