Premiere held in Berlin for Athlone actor's new Amazon Prime film
This month is a particularly exciting one for a talented Athlone actor who is appearing in not one, but two movies that are being released over the coming weeks.
Kiltoom's Rhys Mannion was in Berlin last Thursday for the world premiere of Silver and the Book of Dreams. He is the co-star of this fantasy drama which is being released on the Amazon Prime streaming service this month.
And the local 21-year-old also has a role in Freud's Last Session, starring Anthony Hopkins and Matthew Goode, which is being released in cinemas in America on December 22, ahead of a wider international release in January.
Berlin was chosen for the first screening of Silver and the Book of Dreams because the film is based on a popular German series of young adult novels written by Kerstin Gier.
The 92-minute movie is being released on Amazon Prime in Germany from this Friday (December 8), and is then due to be available on the streaming service in the UK and Ireland from December 19.
Speaking to the Westmeath Independent on Monday, Rhys described the premiere as a "magical" night.
"We had people coming up to us who were fans of the books, and it was really fun seeing how excited they were," he said.
"People were saying that they had come from different countries to see the premiere, so hearing things like that really took your breath away and made you realise how special the night was and how you were part of something that really meant a lot to people."
The film's story follows a teenage girl, Liv Silver, who moves from Germany to London with her mother and sister. There she encounters a group of boys who have a book of dreams and "pull her into the enthralling world of dream-travel".
Rhys plays Henry Harper, who is Liv's romantic interest in the movie. It was filmed mostly in English, but Rhys said versions of it had been dubbed in up to 30 different languages for global release.
"(The film's producers) want to do justice to fans of the books, and where they originated, but also want to reach out to an English-speaking audience that might not have heard of the books and would enjoy the film for a lot of different reasons," he said.
The former Athlone Community College student, who is a son of Ciaran and Mary Mannion, is also looking forward to the upcoming release of Freud's Last Session, which stars Anthony Hopkins and Matthew Goode as psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and author C.S. Lewis respectively.
Rhys plays a young C.S. Lewis in the movie, which was filmed in Ireland earlier this year and had its premiere at a film festival in Hollywood in October.
"It's rich in intellectual thought and it's a festival-style film, I think. My role is smaller in Freud's Last Session, but I'm excited to see it come out," he said.
Rhys' creative spirit was also in evidence recently when he wrote, produced and acted in his own short film - My Last Song - which tells a story about homelessness in Dublin.
He plays a teenager in the capital who stumbles upon a homeless musician and is "infatuated by his songs, mesmerised by his ability, and puzzled at how the public could overlook him".
It's hoped that My Last Song will be shown at festivals next year and plans are also being drawn up to screen it at the IMC Cinema in Athlone as a fundraiser for the Midlands Simon Community.