Producer John McDonnell says:
"With MR on board this gave us the flexibility to shoot the script as written without making too many compromises. We used a service company in Morocco who were terrific as they totally understood the production techniques that we employed and they rowed in behind us with 100% support. The Moroccan crew were wonderful and we became a very tight unit moving huge distances and yet sticking to our schedule. Shooting under these circumstances can be difficult enough, what added an extra air of suspense was the fact that Iraq was invaded two days after we commenced shooting and George Bush declared the war was over the day we wrapped."

Director Alan Gilsenan on TIMBUKTU:
We Irish seem particularly fond of the notion of going away to find ourselves, probably born of the historical impetus toward emigration, or perhaps echoing further back to a tradition of nomadic monks and holy men setting forth in search of a wilderness where they could find God. These spiritual and philosophical echoes are in TIMBUKTU despite the film's violent rock and roll demeanor.

On his travels, TIMBUKTU's writer Paul Freaney absorbed much of the fascinating story of Charles de Foucauld, a decadent sensualist turned ascetic monk who went to the Sahara in search of a kind of mystical negation, and there is something also of him still in the character of Conor. The other factual element that influenced this fictional story was the capture and massacre of seven French Trappist monks in Algeria in 1996. These monks lived in complete harmony with local Muslims until their abduction by the GIA (Armed Islamic Group). Their severed heads were found later hung from a tree outside Tibhirine. It would be demeaning to that tragic tale to claim it as the basis for the massacre at the start of our film but certainly it's influence is clearly there, and it reminds us that the violence of war-torn Algeria is no Western film-maker's fantasy. These things do actually happen. But we must also remember that the passionate violence of the GIA no more reflects the majority of Algerians than the Omagh bombing reflects on the beliefs of most Irish people.

But these influences only hover below, or perhaps, more accurately, above the surface of the film. It was and still is, for me at least, a strange maverick beast. A dark trippy film. A road movie of a kind. The journey that most of us have flirted with but never actually had balls to go on. The road to nowhere. 'Fucking off' as the first chapter of the original novel which this film is based on was called.

TIMBUKTU was shot mainly in Southern Morocco, very close to the Algerian border. It is basically the edge of the Sahara where the roads end and camel trails begin. 'Timbuktu 52 days' boasts a sign close to our hotel - by camel that is. We shot for a frantic four weeks during the so-called Iraq War. How ludicrous that conflict seemed over there. The crew was half Irish and half Moroccan, and we benefited considerably from the fact that all foreign production pulled out of Morocco as soon as war was announced. After some demonstrations and riots in Morocco, and some nervousness on the part of our insurers and the Irish Film Board back in Ireland, the shoot went ahead without incident, apart from the usual heat, sandstorms, sunstroke and nefarious stomach ailments. I understand that Morocco prides itself on it's particularly liberal Muslim outlook, but the demonizing of all things Islam in the post 9/11 hysteria seemed so misplaced when contrasted with the courtesy, kindness and warmth which we encountered on a daily basis.

Yet despite the real toughness of the physical conditions and the crucifying impossibility of the schedule, we were blessed with a largely happy cast and crew, who could leave any tensions or stress behind them as we relaxed into the warm nights with a cold beer. The fact that we got it done at all is mainly due to the 1st AD Andrew Hegarty. The film was shot on a brand new Panasonic 25P DV system. Unusually, we mostly filmed with three cameras under the guidance of Director of Photography PJ Dillon. PJ has an extraordinary visual sense allied to great commitment and intelligence.

There were other unorthodox things. The presence of the writer on location is usually considered a recipe for disaster but Paul Freaney was able to work in an organic way with the actors, not to mention his vital role as alternative location catering ranging from welcome supplies of the 'Special' (Sardine, chips and olive sandwiches if you're interested) as well as on occasion taking over the hotel kitchen and cooking dinner for the whole crew. The actors reverted to their day job of waitressing, just to show they weren't really prima-donnas.

On the Cast:
But let's not forget the cast. I had worked previously with Eva Birthistle a few years ago on an experimental feature called ALL SOULS' DAY. I felt then that Eva possessed all the hallmarks of a star - talent, brains, an easy down-to-earth attitude, a touch of enigma, and did I forget to mention her good old-fashioned beauty? With TIMBUKTU I felt she still had all this and more - maturity and experience - and while I cast around for others my thoughts always returned to Eva.

Casting Deecy was tougher. With our ever-patient casting director Rebecca Roper, I saw many talented actors. But Deecy is a mass of contradictions: camp but not too camp, vulnerable but able to handle himself, a fuck-up but the wisest guy you could meet, cute but not cutesy, sexy to men and women, the list goes on. I felt that New York-based Karl Geary appeared to have all of this when Paul and I met him for what was to be the first of far too many coffees. A writer himself, Karl brought intelligence to all these contradictions as well as his own brand of charisma to a part that had limitless potential for clich. Karl steered a wide birth around anything that smacked of Graham Norton or even good old Mr Pussy. He kept the humour, the pathos, the wildness but imbued it all with a kind of melancholy dignity.

George Jackos walked into the audition in London and I thought here's George Clooney with attitude. I'd seen Brahims in Casablanca and Paris but all the (low) class acts didn't have any English. Here was one who did. A real baddie whom you believed. George sorta became Brahim, or at least the charming part of him. The life-and-soul of the party on location and yet somehow, carefully, quietly he molded a great performance. Even the Moroccans accepted him. He played with them in our weekly Ireland versus Morocco soccer matches, which isn't bad for a Greek geezer from East London.

I'd known Liam Ó Maonlai from afar for years. His charm, his rhythm-and-blues hipness, his boyish good looks. A true nomad, barefoot from Dublin to Alice Springs. Here was a Conor on a different trip. Many of the highlights of the shoot involved Liam singing late into the night or walking naked into the desert with the crew chasing behind.

On the Music:

There was other music too. The soundtrack was always with us, reminding us the type of film we wanted to make. The high fever of Algerian Rai music. The Sufi trances. Traditional Berber music. Jamaican soul. Chebs Khaled and Mami. Aster Aweke and Dimi Mint Abba. Even Leonard Cohen returned to earth and played for us while The Blind Boys of Alabama snuck in the back.

And weaving it all together, Ray Harman. Embracing all the styles and then bringing in some of his own. Gentle, but always inspired, Ray composed an evocative and moving score. We even wrote a song or two together.

So that was TIMBUKTU. The long and winding road. Maybe you never got there!!

Writer Paul Freaney on TIMBUKTU:
The movie started with a journey across the Sahara almost ten years ago. The first couple of months were spent in Morocco trying to get visas and safe passage through Algeria. The first democratic elections had just been cancelled as the Islamic Party had won a majority and the country was festering with violent civil unrest. The GIA were exacting terrible revenge on their own people, on innocent women and children, on foreign missionaries and on tourists. A bomb on a crowded beach outside Algiers - the brutality was extraordinary, the murders ritualistic, with throats cut and in one case the corpses beheaded - a ghoulish report of a dwarf cutting heads off mutilated bodies.

On the other side of the Sahara things were different - another world. Mali, Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast were, at that time wonderful places to travel through. I came back and drafted a novel. I was commissioned to write a screenplay of the book and it took me three or four years to learn how to write a movie.

It started as a journey and became a story about three friends - a brother and sister and Deecy. Tragedy struck early in their lives and soldered their bond. Whatever happened, Isobel, Conor and Deecy would be friends. They all knew that. They went their separate ways gripped by the need to put things back together again. Although it was a bit schematic I wanted the three characters to explore the three very different paths: Deecy goes the way of the flesh, Isobel becomes a painter and lives on the edge of her emotions, while Conor devotes his life to the imitation of Christ. I wanted to put these characters and their inner lives out into the huge landscapes of North Africa.

At the centre of the film is a difficult enough concept - that one only finds oneself in the annihilation of self. It is there in the monastic tradition, in the saint's abdication of worldly goods, in the vows of silence and the rituals of fasting and retreat. The more you give up, the more you find. The less you have the closer you are to what is really important, the closer you get to the hard limits of man, to where man ends and God begins.

Out there in the Sahara, in a place at the end of the world, God is hiding. If you were to find Him you could see from His side. If you were to give it all up, risk everything, you might find a way of getting through, you might find what you really wanted.

Most of the film was shot in sequence; we all traveled south into the desert, mirroring the journey of the characters. As we progressed into the script I was able to adapt and develop the dialogue. We had time to really find the story. As Alan got on with directing the film, Emer Reynolds - the editor - and myself worried about how this strange story was going to hold, how was it going to connect with an audience? Then one hot day Emer turned to me with relief, it's alright, she confided, I saw Deecy and Isobel together today and it works as a love story. Karl and Eva were doing it; they were making us believe that a gay man and a straight woman could really fall in love.

For me, sitting about chatting with the actors about their characters was the highlight of the shoot. George Jackos, would knock on my door at any hour to inquire about a line and together we'd work out the twisted logic of our mutual friend Brahim. Eva had the hardest part. She was playing the straight girl - emotionally wound-up and determined, she had to be convinced that every line was for real. When Karl found Deecy it was a delight and a weird sight out in the small towns of Southern Morocco. Each of his costumes - brilliantly designed by Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh - was a surprise and a revelation.

Making Timbuktu was always going to be a tough proposition. It was. Alan and myself continued to talk over the script until we finally had three talented producers who would manage to put the project together. They managed to get us to Morocco and back, they assembled a talented crew and cast and they managed to persuade our financiers that it could be done. They were right. It is done.

The movie is as I hoped it would be. It feels like where I was when I wrote it. It sounds like where I had to go to get to Timbuktu.

Sean Campion
Sean Campion has enjoyed considerable success as a theatre actor on both sides of the Atlantic for over ten years. From early roles in Macbeth at the Abbey Sean went on to tour with Stones in His Pockets for which he was nominated for a Tony award in 2001. His television career has include work for Channel 4 (Lifeguard) and RTE (Glenroe). More recently Sean has starred in a number of features including Goldfish Memory and Alan Gilsenan's Timbuktu the opening film of the Dublin International Film Festival 2004.

Liam Ó Maonlai
Liam Ó Maonlai is best known as a singer with the internationally renowned music group Hothouse Flowers. He is a recognized exponent of the sean nos style of singing native to Ireland. He is a fluent speaker of the old language. He has explored the music and traditions of other ancient cultures in particular those of the aboriginal people of Australia and the Koteka of West Papua. His acting experience comes from school and university days. He starred in 'Án Gial' by Brendan Behan, produced and directed by Fiach mac Congaile. He appeared in 'the Burke enigma' an early RTE detective series with John Kavanagh and Ray MacAnally. He is soon to appear in a new American production 'the Busker' by Stephen Croake and also in the feature film Timbuktu directed by Alan Gilsenan.