A Message from Tar Creek

After attending the funeral of her first love, a woman makes one final call to his mobile phone. There is no answer, of course, but she leaves a message anyway, an intimate gesture that sits somewhere between grief, denial and the need to remain connected. Starring actor and model Dakota Bottcher, Lovesick: A Message From Tar Creek explores the strange role technology can play in mourning, turning an ordinary mobile phone into a vessel for memory and goodbye.

Directed and co-written by Irish photographer and filmmaker Niall O’Brien in 2015, the film is deliberately understated. Rather than dramatizing loss, O’Brien focuses on a small, deeply human act and allows its emotional weight to unfold through atmosphere and performance. This sensitivity is closely connected to his background in documentary photography, where spending time with people and building trust are central to his approach. His work often moves between fiction and non-fiction, retaining the honesty and intimacy of documentary while allowing space for more poetic and cinematic worlds.

Born in Dublin, O’Brien studied fine art photography at the Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology before spending more than a decade working in London. Although photography remains an important part of his practice, filmmaking has been a natural extension of his interest in storytelling. One of his early projects, Good Rats, followed a group of South London punks over five years and became the starting point for his move into moving image. For O’Brien, the transition from stills to film also opened up a more collaborative way of working, bringing together cinematographers, actors and other creative voices.

Across both his photography and directing, O’Brien is drawn to characters, places and experiences that feel raw, imperfect and genuine. His photographic work has taken him from documenting punks across Europe to road trips through the United States, always with an interest in the people he encounters along the way. He has spoken about the importance of spending time with his subjects until they become comfortable enough to forget the camera is there, an approach that gives his work its candid, human quality. His visual language can be poetic and atmospheric, but it remains grounded in real emotion.

Since A Message From Tar Creek, O’Brien has continued to work across photography, film, music videos and commercial directing. His clients have included Nike, Adidas, Levi’s, Canon, Persil and San Miguel, while his directing work has included music videos for Foals and Breton. His photographs and films have been exhibited internationally, with his work appearing in publications including A24, Time, Dazed, Another Magazine and Creative Review. Now based in Los Angeles, O’Brien continues to move between personal and commercial projects, using the camera to explore identity, isolation, connection and the often complicated spaces between them.

Edit at The Assembly Rooms, London

Post Production by Electric Theatre Collective

Sound Design by Factory Sound

Special Thanks toLizie Gower, Simon Cooper & Dom Thomas at A+//Academy Films,Juliette Larthe, Lou Allen, Laura Holmes, Seb Edwards.