LATE-NIGHT BASEMENT CINEMA PACKS THEM IN

MOVIE-MAKING PROF DRAWS RAVE REVIEWS

FILMMAKER AND VIDEOGRAPHY PROFESSOR Dustin Morrow's landmark 2005 documentary Matchmaker received its exclusive Armagh City avant-premiere last night in a crowded hostel basement. The director was in attendance and played on the internet while students gathered round on a motley assortment of chairs and couches to watch the feature-length film.

Matchmaker, shot in 2003, follows the filmmaker, Morrow, and his associate Seth as the pair of Americans attempt, unsuccessfully, to find love in Ireland.

"It's about the world's largest singles event," Morrow explained, "The Matchmaker Festival, which takes place every September in County Clare. A man named Willy Daly, the world's best matchmaker, introduces people to their soulmates." Morrow rejects the notion that he and his 'production partner' Seth were desperate and dateless, preferring to use the term "single filmmakers".

Asked about making a documentary about himself, Morrow concedes that the film is very much a "product of its time". "You couldn't do it today," he told me. "But that first-person Michael Moore-style documentary was really in vogue when I made it."

In vogue or not, it was popular demand that led the film to be shown in the first place. "I showed some clips in class," Morrow said, "And they started pestering me about it."

The reaction to the film was, Morrow said, "very positive".

"It was hilarious," Bennett College student Janine Quarles said. "Dustin brought the comedy, and Seth was just silly as hell."

Asked if she would attend a similar dating event, called "Mardi-Gras-esque" by the filmmaker, Gonzaga graduate student Cate Oliver shouted out "Oh yeaaah!"

Others disagreed. "It seemed a little raunchy," Quarles told me. "Some of those older women were getting a little loose-- loosey-goosey!"

"I don't think I would go," Temple University student Andrew Harrington said, shaking his head. "Nothing against Irish girls, but they just didn't seem too interested in Dustin or Seth."

But there was love in the end for Morrow after all. Despite his lack of success in the movie, the Matchmaker Festival still led indirectly to his current girlfriend.

"She saw the film," Morrow explained. "She e-mailed me, saying she thought I was 'cute'. We've been together ever since. I don't know if I should tell Willy Daly, though-- he might use it to up his stats," he laughed.

Morrow is currently in the process of preparing the film for widespread U.S. release.