Navan actor"s New York premiere

Navan actor Gerry Shanahan joined his fellow cast and crew members at the premiere of director Ivan Zuccon"s supernatural film, 'Colour From The Dark" in New York last week. Shanahan plays the role of Giovanni, one of the leads in the screen version of the book by American writer HP Lovecraft, who died in 1937. Director Zuccon has set his version of the story in Italy, in the 1940s, during World War II. The central characters in the film are members of a rural farm family who accidentally disturb some supernatural force that had been buried in a well on their farm. The movie follows how the married couple and the sister of the wife on the farm are affected by the water from this well where they have disturbed the spirit, and the inexplicable events that happen around the farm. Shanahan plays their neighbour who lives next door with his granddaughter, and who tries to save the family from the destruction and havoc being wreaked on them by the evil force. He is also harbouring a Jewish girl in one of the barns, as she hides from the Nazis in wartime Italy. The film was shot in the summer of last year in the village of Crespina, near Bologna. Shanahan, Waterford-city born but a Navan resident for many years, was discovered by the director, Zuccon, through his website, which contains a couple of show-reels. 'He came across the website and e-mailed me about his project, asking me would I be interested,' Shanahan says. He also recently joined Julian Benson"s agency in Dublin, which looks after a number of leading figures in the entertainment business. To mainstream Irish audiences, his most familiar role is that of a newspaper editor in the RTE drama, 'Fair City". He has also appeared in reenactments on RTE"s 'Prime Time" and 'Cracking Crime", and was a police sergeant in Paul Williams"s 'Portrait", an award-winner at the Navan Short Film Festival. This year, he took a male lead role in Jordan Scott"s 'Cracks", part-filmed at Headfort School in Kells.