Synopsis:
In a daring immigration scam, a group of 41 desperate Romanians disguised themselves as a folk choir, complete with bogus international awards, then applied by post to take part in a little-known choral festival in Sligo, Ireland.

So impressed was the priest, who ran the international festival, he booked them for the opening night. The Irish consul, delighted they knew of Sligo, happily handed out the visas.

But once the "singers" arrived in Dublin they vanished. Some applied for asylum, others are still on the run.

It was one of Ireland's biggest diplomatic blunders. But far from resigning, the consul is now starring in a film about the 1999 debacle, playing a con man trying to get illegal immigrants to Ireland.

Barry Mulligan, who has lived in Romania for 11 years, runs an advertising agency in Bucharest and, as honorary consul, handles visa requests for the Irish Government. Titled What Means Motley, the film, which he co-wrote, is a fictionalised and humorous account of the scam. Mulligan said the gaffe was etched in Ireland's memory and deserved a film to immortalise it. The "choir" called themselves Dorul, which means a desire for freedom.

Romanians said the name at least should have alerted the authorities to something suspicious.

The film will hit the festival circuit later this year.

Mulligan made the film because he said the 30,000 Romanians in Ireland had received an unjust savaging in the press since they began arriving during the boom of the 1990s. They were initially perceived as beggars and scroungers, despite the very high numbers of Irish couples who adopted Romanian orphans in the early '90s. He hoped the film would help audiences understand what drives a person to try anything to leave their home country.