Mayo filmmaker’s award-winning short film puts him on the road to the Oscars

Growing up in Mayo, Aaron Chalke became accustomed to hearing the daily death notices. Little did he know that this familiar part of everyday life would, years later, become the inspiration for an award-winning short film.

The Ballintubber-born filmmaker’s ‘The Death Notice of Eamonn McCarthy’ imagines a world where people get advance warning of their passing, rather than a notice afterwards. The short film follows Eamonn, a grumpy man in his sixties, who opens a letter telling him he has just one day left to live. His reaction is irritation at the bureaucracy of it all.

“I wanted the film to be very grounded in the reality of it, and to make it feel like it could actually be a world that we do live in, that it’s so normalised,” Aaron says. “That there’s a customer care helpline for it.”

FROM MEDIA BUYER TO DIRECTOR

His route to the director’s chair wasn’t a straight one. Aaron studied multimedia, which he chose because it let him explore photography, film, audio and radio in one course. “It allowed me to get my teeth stuck in everything,” he says.

He then spent seven years as a media buyer before setting up his own company, Foe, which specialised in media partnerships and advertising production. He and his business partner kept feeling an itch to see what filmmaking was like. Their first short, 'Shadow Man', in 2021, had what he describes as “a relatively successful festival run,” and the pair then became hooked. He went on to complete a postgraduate diploma in advanced producing for film and TV. “The more I got into the industry, the more I loved the nuances of it, the different challenges,” he says.

This is when Aaron created the concept for ‘The Death Notice of Eamonn McCarthy’. Students had to develop a project they could take to funders and stakeholders, and Aaron wanted something self-generated rather than a collaboration with another writer.

“It was sleeping and breathing in my head. I could see it,” he says. “I just felt like it had to be made.”

A GRIEF STORY WITH A SENSE OF HUMOUR

The film shifts from deadpan comedy to something much more emotional, and that was deliberate. Aaron was careful not to trivialise the subject too early. Instead, the humour comes from situations. Eamonn facing his last day alive and not able to speak to a manager for 48 hours.

“Humour opens up emotions. It opens up the door to feeling,” he says. “So by the time we got to the more emotive parts of the film, with the Patsy Cline song playing, for example, I’d hope that they were more open to exploring deeper and more emotional elements,” he says.

Aaron also got much of the film’s inspiration from the loss of his own mother, and the questions that followed that in his own mind ile “What if you knew the last coffee you had was the last you’d ever have?”

Eamonn’s grief is set against another character called Geraldine, the call-centre worker who is, in Aaron’s words, ‘almost naively genuine’ and willing to break the rules on her first day to help.

“I don’t want the film to be preachy,” he says. “But if I could kind of encourage people to just do even a small thing on that list and not put it off, that would be a win for me.”

CASTING, CREW AND ANOTHER MAYO CONNECTION

Michael McElhatton, best known for his role in Game of Thrones, was Aaron's choice for Eamonn from early on, for his dramatic range and his comic timing. “We needed a grumpy character,” Aaron says, “but also not too grumpy that you can't believe him when he develops his character.”

Behind the camera, he credits director of photography Simon Crowe and fellow Mayo man Eamonn Corcoran, who was on lights.

Some moments, he says, appeared exactly as he’d pictured them. “It was surreal to see it.” he says.

'The Death Notice of Eamonn McCarthy' was shot at the end of January 2025 and screened at its first festival that August, around ten to twelve months from writing to finished film. Aaron, who admits he wasn’t sure at the outset whether he could direct or whether the script would work on screen, calls the process “rewarding, but also very educational.”

The film premiered at the Rhode Island Film Festival, and they were supported by Culture Ireland.

“Myself and the film’s producer, Louise McCabe, travelled to the festival and we got to present the film at it,” he says.

And a subsequent win as ‘Best Irish Short’ at the Foyle Film Festival has put it into the Oscars race for ‘Best Live Action Short Film’. “That was a bit of a shock, to be honest,” he says.

OSCAR WINNING MENTORS and WHAT’S NEXT

His next project, 'The Dead House', is an adaptation of a stage play, funded through the Ardán RTÉ Short Film Commission. The commission pairs each filmmaker with a mentor, and Aaron asked for the team behind the Oscar-winning 'An Irish Goodbye', Tom Berkeley and Ross White.

Aaron says the pair have been hugely influential to his writing.

"They were an amazing help," he says. "It allowed me to go on set really prepped, and really confident in what we're about to do. It's an experience I didn't expect I'd ever get."

'The Dead House' is more firmly in the dramatic genre, though it still has moments of dark humour. Aaron says he's still happy to be learning on the job. "Learn from other people. Learn by doing. Learn by making mistakes."