Lance Daly, Kisses

Making the most of limited budgets and real locations, Dublin auteur Lance Daly's third film, Kisses, is a study of two runaways. Dylan (Shane Curry), flees an abusive father just as his older brother had done two years earlier. Kylie (Kelly O'Neill) lives next door with five siblings and an overworked mother. Directing children can be formidable by itself; casting, as the bearded Daly details here, involved thousands of candidates. But tremendous work has evidently paid off: not only has Kisses just received American distribution, Daly has also just finished a made-in-Hollywood Hitchcock-style thriller with Orlando Bloom (21 minutes).

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