Hi there! My name’s Liadán Roche and I’m a trans woman filmmaker based in Dublin! My last short film Terratoma, about a messy trans girl failing to process her trauma through art, recently finished its festival run and continues to cultivate an incredible response from the international trans film scene.

As I’m preparing to shoot my next short, Hostile Architecture, a sexy trans romance horror, I hope that both people who connected with my last film and those that are new to Irish trans film will show support for this independent Irish trans production. (Our backer rewards at the bottom of the page include your name in the film's credits!)

Hostile Architecture is a film about two isolated trans people who rent an extra-dimensional room to hook up in. Grace has just been kicked out by her queer housemates without explanation and Billy has been stuck living in his childhood bedroom all his life. Without their own private space to fuck, they create an extra-dimensional room for the night. But when the walls start closing in on them, the lovers must decide if there’s any space for them in the city outside their room.

The film was written by my creative partner and boyfriend James Hudson, and will be directed by me. It’s a real T4T production! Our vision for this film is uncompromisingly sexy, dark, and trans, which has made it difficult to get funding through conventional Irish funding bodies. As a result we’ve decided to shoot the film totally independently and we’re so excited about the creative freedom this guarantees us. We want to capture trans intimacy in all its sweaty, messy, kinky glory, reflect on strained community and impossible romance in Dublin’s housing crisis, and tell a story that’s true to our lives in a way we haven’t yet seen in film.

STORY & CHARACTERS

Hostile Architecture is a romance horror informed by everyday issues for people in Dublin: the cost-of-living crisis, the housing crisis, the job market, the everyday grind with no certain future, and the difficulty of finding community or having good sex in these circumstances.

Fantasy-horror conventions allow our story to magnify the real impact of these issues – this is a world where extra-dimensional travel has been solved before the housing crisis. But the heart of the story is a budding romance between GRACE and BILLY, and the question of whether these star-crossed lovers can survive in a city that wants to squeeze the life out of them.

GRACE (played by LIATH HANNON)

Grace is alone, evicted, cut off from her community and stuck working a thankless job. Initially she only sees a hookup with Billy as a bed to sleep in for the night—but getting to know Billy in a space that feels entirely their own opens Grace to the possibility that she can find connection and belonging in Dublin. She’s just not sure it will last.

BILLY (played by PETE MACHALE)

Billy works a string of temp jobs for shit pay, forcing him to live at home with his parents and older brother. He’s purchased a piece of chalk that allows him to create an extra-dimensional room–but it just brings him mediocre hookups and the illusion of having his own space. With Grace, Billy feels a real connection, and it’s a shock to the system. Finding out what he’s been missing will make or break him.

LIADÁN:

Hey! I’m a trans filmmaker and playwright from Cork, living in Dublin. My most recent short film Terratoma, which I wrote, directed, edited and composed for, premiered at BFI Flare, received an honorable mention at the GAZE International LGBTQIA Film Festival, was longlisted for the Iris Prize and received the Best Audience Short Award at TITE.

I was a participant in the 2024 starGAZE LGBTQIA talent development programme through which I’m being mentored by filmmaker Louise Weard. I recently graduated from the NFTS London with a Masters in Screenwriting, where I wrote my dissertation on modern portrayals of sex in films. Through co-writing and directing this script, I hope to take everything I’ve learned until now to create something uniquely strange and sexy.

JAMES:

Hi! I’m a writer and film programmer best known for my work curating short films at the GAZE LGBTQIA International Film Festival and the TITE Film Festival, and I wrote the story and co-wrote the script for this film. This is my first script, but I’ve published a number of short stories about lonely horny freaks, so I’m well within my comfort zone writing Grace and Billy.

Alongside writing I’ve been immersed in short films for years now, curating them for festivals and spending time on friends’ film sets. Creating more opportunities for trans film in Ireland is my passion, so I’m thrilled to work on a production with so many talented queer and trans people. I’m just really excited to make my screenwriting debut with a film that touches on everything I find most interesting and exciting in Irish film – sex, horror, transsexuality.

OIS:

Ois O’Donoghue is an interdisciplinary Theatre Maker, Writer, Producer and Co-Founder of Jaxbanded Theatre. Her play HYPER debuted at the 2023 Dublin Fringe Festival and was

nominated for both the Fishamble New Writing Award and The George Fitzmaurice Award, before touring to the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe Festival where it received a nomination for the Popcorn X BBC Writers New Writing Award. In 2024 Ois was named Director of the Year by The Arts Review for her work on HATE F%#K by Jodie Doyle. Along with this, her latest original piece FREEZE was featured as part of Landmark Production's Theatre For One: This Ireland at Cork Midsummer 2024 where it received 5 star reviews from The Irish Times and The Irish Examiner.

PRODUCTION & FINANCES

Hostile Architecture is being produced by Ois O’Donoghue and her company Jaxbanded. Between the writer, director and production company, we are contributing €3,500 of our own finances to the film. We’re aiming to raise an additional €3,500 to ensure everyone on our cast and crew is paid a fair rate for their work on this film.

With a DIY spirit and some movie magic from our production designer Hiram Harrington (Glory, Hole), our budgets for locations, props and set design have stayed low, allowing us to prioritise our largely trans and queer cast and crew.

Most of our crew has been filled out at this stage, and we’re locking in the remaining roles in the next month. As this is a film that centers sex and intimacy, I’ve brought on intimacy coordinator Sinéad Cassidy Holt (Terratoma) to ensure the comfort and safety of our cast and crew.

Aside from essentials such as equipment rental, insurance and catering, the vast majority of our budget will go towards paying cast and crew for their time and labour.

REWARDS

Any and all donations towards supporting this film are appreciated! Higher tier donations will receive the following title in the film's credits:

Please include your name in the donation to be credited; anonymous donors will be credited as 'Anonymous Supporter'.

THANK YOU

If you’ve gotten this far, thanks for reading and for supporting sexy Irish trans film!

Love,

Lia x