WHAT RICHARD DID follows Richard Karlsen, golden-boy athlete and undisputed alpha-male of his privileged j set of South Dublin teenagers, through the summer between the end of school and the beginning of university. The world is bright and everything seems possible, until in one summer night Richard does something that destroys it all and shatters the lives of the people closest to him. Featuring extraordinary performances from its mainly young cast, WHAT RICHARD DID is a quietly devastating study of a boy confronting the gap between who he thought he was and who he proves to be. www.whatricharddid.ie

We are used to seeing films about teenagers that tell the outsider's story, because, conventionally, that's where the dramatic intensity is supposed to be and where empathy is most comfortably evoked, in WHAT RICHARD DID I was interested in making a film about the boy at the centre of his group, the one who is loved, who is blessed This is the film I've made which grew most in the making. Every project is part execution and part discovery, but in this case, the process of working with the young cast over many months, transformed my ideas of what the film could be. Along with myself and my collaborator, Malcolm Campbell, this is very much their film.