What Do The Critics Say?

"The captivating Irish musical romance Once will warm all but the stoniest hearts." Colin Covert MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE "Wonderful and winning Irish musical." James Greenberg HOLLYWOOD REPORTER "The perfect movie to fall in love with, as well as the perfect movie to fall in love to." Edward Douglas COMINGSOON "We do not fall in love nearly enough at the movies, but this is one to adore." Mark Dujsik MARK MOVIE REVIEWS "Once is the genuine article: a winning love story told with simple grace and humanity." Jurgen Fauth ABOUT.COM "A romantic fairy tale of astonishing delicacy and emotional nuance. This movie is so good I wasn’t even bothered by [director] Carney never giving his characters names." Robert W. Butler KANSAS CITY STAR

"No matter what your musical tastes, Once will reinforce your belief in the power of melody and harmony to heal one's inner wounds." Gene Seymour NEWSDAY "The most naturalistic and believable romantic musical you may ever see and hear." Terry Lawson DETROIT FREE PRESS "A sweet, raw blessing of a film." Tom Long DETROIT NEWS "It takes all of 10 seconds for John Carney's Once to announce itself as something special." Joe Morgenstern WALL STREET JOURNAL "Amazing music, great performances. This is really, truly a musical, in the best sense of the word." Richard Roeper EBERT & ROEPER "Don't miss Once. It has to be seen and heard to be believed and enjoyed." Andrew Sarris NEW YORK OBSERVER "Once makes a persuasive case that the real future of the movie musical may lie not in splashy grandeur but in modesty and understatement." A.O. Scott NEW YORK TIMES

The Inside Story In the early 1990's, before devoting himself to a film career, John Carney was a musician playing bass guitar with Dublin band "The Frames". He understands and appreciates the power of a song, and how it can carry more weight than swathes of dialogue. In fact, conversations about this project started in 2005 at a Frames concert. "As a filmmaker with a background in music, I wanted to try and make something that relied less on your conventional ninety page script, something that was a little bit more organic, and something that included a lot of songs. That was the original starting-point," he explained. As he developed the concept that would become "ONCE", he sought "something that would express itself in ten pages of dialogue or script. A two and a half to three minute piece of music, I always feel, can be as powerful as a day’s conversation with, for example, a young lady. You can talk and talk and talk." So how did he come up with this tale a 'The Guy' and 'The Girl'? "I came up with the idea of a story of a busker mainly because I wanted to keep the characters in a musical world. I didn’t want them just singing, I wanted them to be musicians and singers. So it was more natural that they would sometimes say to each other, 'Look, I’ve just written you a song and I want you to hear it.' It would be natural for them to sing. So I came up with the idea of a busker and a pianist, who then ended up being an immigrant," he said. Carney set the film in his native Dublin, with Frames singer Glen Hansard as a songwriting guitarist, and Marketa Irglova (a musician from the Czech Republic who has collaborated before with Hansard) as an immigrant pianist. Despite Carney’s background as a former member of "The Frames", he hadn’t initially considered either Hansard or Irglova for the key roles, even though he had Hansard contributing songs from the beginning. "I had an Irish actor in mind for the leading role of the film, who can sing as well, but it didn’t work out for him. And it just gradually occurred to me as I was putting Glen on tape, asking him about his songs, giving him script pages. He’d go off and write something according to them, or I’d write some scenes according to the song he gave me. It occurred to me this guy’s the guy to do this role, really. Because he’ll sell these songs better than any actor would as they’re his songs," says Carney. "A professional actor can rarely get behind a production in the way a non-actor will, which is understandable. I like working with non actors because they’ll give you their all." Marketa Irglova, then only seventeen, the concept of acting was alien, although she had been aware of the project and was enthused by it. "I heard about the idea of the film from Glen, because he was asked to write music for it," she recalled. "I saw some of John’s films before and I thought that was very cool. The idea of the film sounded nice, and then one night I got a phone call from Glen, asking if I’d like to act in the film. I thought he was joking!" Asked why she auditioned Irglova replied, "Because I’m so young, I’m kind of up for anything." With Glen and Marketa onboard, Carney gathered a crew together. People he’d befriended. People whose abilities he had the utmost faith. "They were all people that I knew and trusted," he explained. "They got the whole idea of this not being your conventional film. So once my mates were making this film with me, then I was like: 'Brilliant!' This is back to how we were when we were sixteen, with a camcorder and friends and some songs. And I think people who’ve seen the film have responded very warmly to that, because they’ve seen that nobody’s trying to sell them anything here. That’s the vibe." The next step would be finding the right producers. "I’ve known Samson Films for years,” he explains. "So when I had the idea of the film, I was thinking of various ways of producing it, and when I decided that I wasn’t going to go with a big actor in the lead role; or any actor, I went to Samson and said I have this idea for a film, and it’s kind of scripted and these songs are written, do you guys want to get on board with it? And they did." In fact a great releationship formed between Carney, producer Martina Niland and executive producer David Collins. "We just had a very relaxed relationship producing this film, because it was made for a small amount of money and everybody pulled in and joined together for this short period of time to make it work. Samson is a good company for that, because David Collins is at a place in his life where he does not need to prove himself as a producer; he just wants to make what he wants to make." Niland agreed adding, "It was a real back to basics form of filmmaking and certainly the kind that has always attracted me the most and got me excited about "ONCE" from the early days of chatting to John about his ambitions for the project. We avoided bureaucracy and red tape as much as possible and everyone got to concentrate one hundred percent on what’s on the screen. I think that shows when one watches this film." It's hard to believe I know, but "ONCE" was shot over a couple of weeks. "It was super-fast," Hansard recalls. "We were up at six every morning, we were working all day, and it drains the life out of you. Being in a band is so much easier. You get up at midday, you head to the airport, you get on a plane, you get to another country, you sound check around five or six, doors are at eight, you’ve got your gig at nine. It’s very chilled-out. It’s all evening work. With this, we were just knackered, going back home and literally being a shell of yourself. You were just completely gone until the next morning. It was very intense." Irglova agrees that the shoot "was really exhausting. If you woke up and had some problems in your personal life, you had to be up for the scenes you were shooting and you had to be convincing, because being an actor is being a good liar. You have to convince everybody that you’re feeling everything that you’re supposed to be feeling, which is really hard, and really demanding of your emotions. We had really tough days; it was nothing like when you play music." In the end though she says she found the experience very fulfilling. "I really enjoyed being a part of a team. It was very compact. John, Glen and I were at the center, but there were other people around it that took care of their own parts and I really enjoyed working with everybody, meeting new people, and watching the film afterwards, and this feeling of achievement of doing good art; looking at it afterwards and feeling we did something good here." An essential element of the film are its rich, heartfelt songs. Hansard is "a good lyricist because his songs are never literal. His songs are very much about pictures and images and ideas, and moments in time," Carney notes. "He paints little pictures with the songs. I’d write a scene, or come up with a character note based on a song." What also appealed to Carney about this project was the fact that it allowed him and Hansard to combine their talents and interest in each other’s craft. "I left The Frames to make films," he recalls. "But Glen was always very interested in films, we always had a lot to talk about, about movies. He was doing "The Commitments" just as the band started. But apart from that, Glen was always interested in Bergman films and French films. He’s certainly a film fan, and an independent or arthouse film fan as well." So why didn't the former band member (1991 to 1993) pursue a career in music? "I love music. It was never a career for me, really, apart from when I was young and in the band. It’s an entertainment thing. For Glen, film is an entertainment. So it was interesting, the two things coming together. That was a good experience we both, I think, responded well to that," Carney offered. Hansard sees "ONCE" as a source of much pride as well as an exceptional experience. "It’s definitely a lovely thing for me to look back and say that I was involved. It basically came up trumps as far as I’m concerned. I can look back and be proud of it, and not only for the fact that we managed to act our way through it, but also that the songs are there and they’re kind of immortalized in this film. Which is great." Like Carney, Hansard was full of praise for his co-star Irglova who he says "didn’t have any problems, slipped straight into it and really got it." Carney, who picked up the Silver Hitchcock Award winner for "On The Edge" at the 2001 Dinard Film Festival (starring Cillian Murphy and Stephen Rea), obviously gained a lot of self satisfaction from the film. "I was a filmmaker for a while and then I got sucked into TV. So when I came back to filmmaking I’d lost a hold in the ladder slightly, and I was finding it hard to get a film made. Making "ONCE" wasn’t a career move, so much, it was just a decision to go back to basics, and prove myself again. My intention was to make an original film, almost like a visual album, but with a realistic, modern love-story at its heart." "The Frames" former bass guitarist has well and truly achieved all that and more with this memorable little film, "ONCE" which received the World Cinema Audience Drama Award at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. Synopsis

He's just a guy, a street musician who is playing for change when he meets the girl, an immigrant from the Czech Republic who lives with her mother who cares for the girl's daughter when she is at work selling flowers. The pair immediately bond over their shared love of music. He's a guitarist. He's just broken up with his girlfriend and is on the rebound. She plays the piano and thinks about whether she should bring her husband to Ireland. They form a tentative relationship. The guys' songs are fueled by his painful breakup, but they have heart and appeal. The girl talks him into taking a loan from the bank and cutting a demo CD. They work on his songs together. The music draws them closer. He assembles musicians to back him and hires a recording studio for the weekend. The final cut makes an impressive collection of songs. He's gambling on a big break. What will become of them?

The Verdict "This so down to earth and the premiss seems paper thin, yet surprise, surprise; cinemagoers, including myself are coming away from "ONCE" downright impressed by what is a very entertaining film. The cast, the setting, the songs and of course, 'The Guy' and 'The Girl' all combine to make this undeniably satisfying and, most memorable. There is an air of expectation that these two will get together. That love will blossom. It's this 'will they or won't they' that provides an added bonus. A quality 'art-house' production that provides excellent value for your cinema bucks. Highly recommended. 4 STARS." The Guy Glen Hansard is the lead singer, guitarist and a founding member of Irish rock group The Frames. He quit school at the age of thirteen to begin busking on Dublin streets and gradually established himself as one of Irish music’s most popular and greatest talents. He first came to public attention as guitar player Outspan Foster in the Alan Parker film "The Commitments". Prior to that film, he secured a record deal with Island Records and subsequently formed "The Frames" in 1990. The band has been recording and touring ever since, and included filmmaker John Carney as bass player in its earliest incarnation. The band released their sixth studio album "The Cost" in September 2006 to widespread acclaim. The Girl Born in Monravia in 1988, and a resident of Prague in the Czech Republic, Marketa Irglova is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter. She has proved to be quite a talent, having already recorded an album of music with Glen Hansard while also co-starring alongside him in "ONCE". She began playing music at the age of seven, when her parents got her a piano and piano lessons. When she was nine, her father bought her a guitar and she immediately began playing and learning songs by ear. She met Glen Hansard when he was visiting Prague, and they began playing together and eventually collaborated musically, which resulted in the release of an album, "The Swell Season". The Production Team "ONCE" was .......
directed by 2007 Sundance Film Festival & Dublin International Film Festival Audience Award winner John Carney ["November Afternoon", "Park", "On the Edge" and "Zonad"]; screenplay by John Carney ["November Afternoon", "Park", "On the Edge" and "Zonad"]; casting director Maureen Hughes ["Borstal Boy", "Disco Pigs", "Spin the Bottle" and "Six Shooter"]; production design by Tamara Conboy ["Disco Pigs", "In America" and "The Medallion"]; edited by Paul Mullen ["Space Raiders"]; cinematography by Tim Fleming ["It's All in the Jeans", "Nostradamus and Me", "Turning Green" and "Never Judge a Book"]; produced by Martina Niland ["Beached", "All God's Children", "The Honeymooners" and "Man of Fire"]. Who's Who?

Glen Hansard Markéta Irglová Bill Hodnett Danuse Ktrestova Sean Miller Catherine Hansard Kate Haugh Senan Haugh Darren Healy Gerard Hendrick Pat McGrath Geoff Minogue Leslie Murphy Wiltold Owski Marcella Plunkett Praghosa Pete Short Krzysztos Tiotka Hugh Walsh Mal Whyte

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The Guy The Girl Guy's Dad Girl's Mother Bank Manager Singer at party Baby Husband Heroin Addict Lead Guitarist Drunk Eamon Mother Man watching TV Ex Girlfriend Hari Krishna Singer at party Man watching TV Timmy Drummer Bill

Run Time 85 minutes Rated M [AUST] Copyright ©2007 - Fox Searchlight Films - All Rights Reserved ©2007 All Rights Reserved - Protected by Australian & International Copyright. Trademark Laws Apply.