Actor Ian Fitzgibbon has a face well-known to most - he was Helen Mirren's side-kick in the first two series of Prime Suspect for a start. A less well-known fact is that he recently turned his attentions to directing films in addition to starring in them. He has just finished shooting The American with Mathew Modine and Diana Rigg in Dublin and this week his short film, Stranded, premiered at the Tribeca Film Centre in New York.
Stranded is an unusual collaboration - Irish film-makers, New York musicians and Icelandic singers are all involved - and the film is directed by Ian, written by his brother Brian FitzGibbon while a third brother, Adrian Fitzgibbon is executive producer. Brian now lives in Iceland and the film is nominally set there, although it was actually shot in the Sally Gap.
The other producer is Benjamin Patton, who also produced the soundtrack which was composed by Art Labriola, and is a man whose organisational skills were never in doubt - his grandfather was General Patton.
So when Ben organised an opening night party for Stranded, it was bound to be a glitzy affair. Those who came and professed themselves bowled over by the film included Mathew Modine himself; actor Paul Hickey who is in the film; Dr Andrew Schiff and his wife Karenna Gore Schiff, who is the daughter of the US vicepresident Al Gore; Elizabeth Salzman, fashion editor of Vanity Fair; Ian's wife Rebecca Rowe of Temple Bar Properties; Valerie and Doug Johnson, the Broadway producers of Tony-award winning musicals, Titanic and Tommy; Rudy Bednar, senior producer of ABC network; Frances Edwards, senior executive of HBO Productions, and Harlan Bratcher and Dan Scheffey, executives from Sony Entertainment.