GYRoSCOPe
a device for measuring orientation
GYRoSCOPE FILMS is a team of 4 affiliated film makers who work together on exceptional stories. Production Offices, studio, Post Production & Cinema are based at The Gyreum, Co. Sligo, Ireland
IN DEVELOPMENT
PORTAL2PURGATORY Feature length documentary in association with Eniac Prague & Derry based Besom Productions (who made WAVERIDERS). A medieval detective story based on ancient manuscript accounts of journeys across Europe of foolhardy knights and belligerent monks who came to the shor es of Lough Derg in North West Ireland eager to enter Purgatory through a portal that supposedly lay there. Curiously simultaneous with the development of Lough Derg’s Pilgrimage, Purgatory as a tangible theological place became apparent in the late 12th Century. Tales coming back to mainland Europe from Lough Derg inspired Dante’s DIVINA COMEDIA. Using 4K RED camera technology, some drama reconstruction and old movie archive we recreate the political and papal intrigues behind the establishment of this “third Place.” (Luther’s term for Purgatory)
IN PRODUCTION
WHAT LIES BENEATH a documentary following 3 Irish Transition Year students as they attempt to quantify how many trillion metres of gas might there be beneath Ireland’s “Bolivia sized sway of water.” Edit commences May 2010. Locations: County Mayo, Ireland, Stavanger Norway, Orinoco Delta Venezuela.
ARCTIC DOOMSDAY VAULT Close to the North Pole deep beneath the Permafrost there is an enormous fridge that right now is being filled with duplicates of all the food seeds of the world, stored there in case of natural or man made disaster. We shot the construction of the Vault and are in the last months of following the main man behind the Project, Cary Fowler (our ‘Noah’), as he traverses the globe, endeavouring to save the seed diversity ahead of enormous shifts in agriculture as climate changes.
DISTRIBUTOR TVF International, 375 City Road, London EC1V 1NB, UK Tel: +44 (0)20 7837 3000 Fax +44 (0)20 7278 8833 Email: int@tvf.co.uk Website: www.tvf.co.uk
PAST CATALOGUE
Colum Stapleton heads up GYRoSCOPE, Director/ Producer of documentaries since 1995. Colum previous work was done with his own companies: Glencairn Ltd/ & SMIRSH
Full length Documentaries
Teamhair (Tara) 52’ DOCUMENTARY for BCI and TG4 broadcasting 3 December 2008 Director & Exec producer in association with SOILSIU FILMS Donega. A journey into the heart of Ireland’s “notional Ancient Capital” Tara, its history and archaeology and ancient texts. Hovering behind this history is the construction of a motorway right across this ancient landscape; both its builders & its protesters become mythic inhabitants
Trick of the Light 52' Digibeta IFB/ Westnorsk Film Fondet/ Film NorskDate of Completion Jan 2004 Broadcast Planete Poland 2006 Can Italian scientists discover the truth behind these queer Norwegian lights?
In the Hessdalen Valley 135km east south east of Trondheim, Norway, orbs of light have been seen for the past twenty years. They are said to be from football size to 90 metres in diameter, are high up in winter, low in the valley in summer, appear in all sorts of weather, dart about in day and night but are more obvious after dark. Some say the orbs seem to move away when approached by humans.
The valley has 130 inhabitants, few children, many old women. 10km into the valley the road becomes a dirt track and in the wilderness beyond this toward Oyungen Lake is where some of the most dramatic and haunting sightings have occurred. The local Pastor, Doctor & Mayor have never seen “the phenomenon.”
Hessdalen is the only place on earth where scientific effort has been put to understanding what these ‘earthlights' are. Italian & Norwegian & Irish scientists are spyed on as they move towards understanding what these lights might mean. As nobody cares for more wobbly light orbs as testimony for sighting. Our scientists set to the task to try to grab one superb chemical spectrograph that they might know what is the kernel of the orb?
The Empire of Juramidam 52'/70’DigiBeta IFB/ NIFTC
Broadcast Satelite Channel Latin America. Winner of Best Documentary at Greencine Film Festival San Francisco 2005
What happens when Everyman becomes a shaman?
When religion is losing its grip across the Western World along comes a Church that guarantees an encounter with the Divine - no faith needed - just the ability to stomach an hallucinogenic brew called ayahuasca from the heart of the Amazon.
The Church is the Santo Daime, also known as the Church of the Eclectic Universal Light. It is one of Christianity’s most extraordinary offspring and it has just hit Europe.
"How does a person or community function when they are so regularly at such a high pitch of spiritual openness?"
"How will the European participants fare when they encounter “the mythic Empire of Juramidam”?" Caused wonderful controversy in full page in SUNDAY TELEGRAPH London after its showing at Latin American Film Festival in 2005.
Sai Baba - Strange Avatar 52’/ 70’ Super 16mm 1996
Irish Film Board/ FAB Germany/ TSI Switzerland/ Megaris Italia/ RTE Ireland
India’s most famous Godman exposed
There has been much publicity highlighting the criminal background of India’s most famous Godman, Sai Baba. At the height of his power he had the President and Prime Ministers of India literally kissing his feet.
This documentary went public with Baba’s murder intrigue and paedophilia way ahead of time. Shot over two years it scrutinises the original miracles that made Baba famous, builds up a picture of how people were magnetised to Baba, talks to rationalists who explain Baba’s childhood background and how he merged magic trickery with Messiah status.
Finally we speak to ex followers who still believe he has vast power but that his use of it is malevolent.
Holy Hijacker - Seeking the third secret of Fatima 52’ Super 16mm 1999/ updated 2000/ updated 2005 for death of Pope John Paul II RTE/ Irish Film Board - Most watched doc ever shown in Ireland also shown in Australia, USA, Spain USA, Canada and more…
How one Australian helped unearth the world’s best kept secret
In 1981 an Australian hijacked an Irish plane while flying over England. He ordered it diverted to France in order to force the Vatican to reveal the Third Secret of Fatima, purportedly uttered by the Virgin Mary to a group of children in Fatima, Portugal in 1917.
The hijack took place one week before the Feastday of Our Lady of Fatima, the day of the attempted assassination on Pope John Paul II. The Polish Pope did not ignore the coincidence, he put down his survival to the intercession of “the Divine Mother.”
Lawrence James Downey, the Australian hijacker, explains what drove him to this extreme action. He leads us into the apocalyptic world of Fatima’s secrets - the fall of Communism, Church chicanery and a possible end of the world before the millennium.
The Catholic Church finally revealed this mystic last secret of Fatima in June 2000. This documentary was remade post this 2000 information & again post death of Pope in 2005
Tell Me Captain Strange 52’ 2001 Digibeta RTE/ Irish Film Board – Second most watched doc ever shown in Ireland
UFOs over Ireland – one man’s attempt to get the mother of all snaps of these coy visitors
That there are UFOs flying over Ireland is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary proof. Hearsay, anecdotes, drunken eyes, sober minds, wobbling cameras, squiggly lights, precision telescopes, bleeping radars, state of the art spectrographs; who or what can you trust?
The ancient Irish, the Tuath De Danaan were said to have landed in a great shaft of light on a hill in Leitrim. The Irish Annals mention anchors from skyships coming stuck in the belfries of Clonmacnoise.
A 1980s schoolgirl sees a giant craft outside her dormitory window, a pre-war child speaks for the first time in 62 years about the craft that landed in front of him. A multiply witnessed sighting of a flying saucer took place in Kerry five days after Roswell. The Chief Nurse at Mental Institute cannot admit to his patients that he saw a craft 20 years ago. An old man from South Armagh relates under hypnosis the craft he was let into.
Why did President Clinton while turning on the Christmas lights in Belfast, 1995, reveal the final truth about what happened in Roswell?
Weaving round a plethora of sightings is one man from Roscommon who is determined to trap the first ‘proper’ proof that these craft exist, using sophisticated optical devices, . Attempts are made to imagine who owns these craft and who might be captaining them.
A Lock o’ Housin’ 24’ Sligo/ Leitrim VEC 2009. Visual exploration of the absurd & sporadic building programme of the Celtic Tiger years in Ireland, 21st century follies.
GYRoVAGUS 30’ FILM for Sligo / Leitrim VEC 2007 charting the journeys of pilgrims along a very eclectic modern pilgrim circuit across north west Ireland from Lough Arrow to the Hermits of Skreen – Innishmurray – Bundoran amusements – Lough Derg – Krishnas of Lough Erne – the Buddhists of Cavan – the Pagans of Leitrim.
GYRoLOG 30’ FILM for Sligo Leitrim VEC 2006 charting the evolution of the creation Ireland’s Newest Annals: This was a survey of how time passes for different rural people and what does news mean to them and how do they access it – be it local or global. This info then influences the creation of the ANNALS OF AHANA situated at The Gyreum near Lough Arrow.
Regular contributor to Orientierung Programme on ORF TV Austria, of short documentaries on ethics and spiritual themes. Among them were:
Parliament of World Religions ORF Austria. Follows the proceeding and intention of a pre-millennium gathering of all the world’s faiths - includes interview with the Dalai Lama.
Temple of Isis ORF Austria Study of Goddess worship in rural Ireland
UN Millenium Summit of World Religions 2000 ORF Austria
Religious leaders of the world gather in New York to check out the millennium
WOW (Women Ordination Worldwide) 2001 ORF Austria
Follows the drama behind women seeking to be priests despite Vatican objection
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Togail Grianain Irish language 2002 TG4 Ireland. Follows over a year the construction of a latterday megalithic cairn in rural Sligo, Ireland This ‘Cairn’ now roofs the Gyreum Eco Centre & GYRoSCOPE studio.