Mark’s film is being screened this weekend as part of The Powerscourt Edit, a three-day showcase curated by Made in Wicklow, in collaboration with Screen Wicklow.
The festival celebrates filmmakers with strong connections to the county, with screenings taking place in the Garden Room at Powerscourt House, Enniskerry, from Saturday, January 31 to Monday, February 2.
The last time New York-resident Mark came home in a professional capacity was in February 2023, to host a screening of his award-winning work Outside In upstairs at The Harbour Bar – a venue he knows all too well, with his family having owned the Bray pub for years.
That movie focused on the tumultuous years of the pandemic in New York, and won the director major awards at The Alternative Film Festival Toronto, the New York International Film Awards and the Bridgeport Film Festival to name but a few.
The film recounts how Mark and his family survived during the shutdown at the height of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, as more than eight million people disappeared from the streets.
Beyond the Finish Line – The Great Ethiopian Run is a 2025 short documentary, which takes the Wicklow man to Ethiopia, where an Irish-led team of runners are taking part in Africa’s largest road race.
While the race forms the spine of the film, Mark, who took part in the event, uses the wider journey across the volatile and rugged country on the Horn of Africa, to highlight the human impact of humanitarian aid – or lack of it.
It is not a political film, Mark said, “it’s about what happens on the ground when aid works – and what’s lost when it doesn’t”.
The documentary follows a small group of Irish runners who travel to Ethiopia to take part in Africa’s largest road race, held at nearly 8,000 feet above sea level in Addis Ababa, making it among the most physically demanding mass-participation races in the world.
Goal Race Team: Alfie Tucker, Eamon Sharkey, Liz Devine, Ben O’Brien, Liam O’Brien, Mark O’Toole, Amie Wiley, Eamonn Coghlan, Ronan Ryan, Conor Twomey, and Ed Louie, in Addis Ababa.
Founded by Olympian Haile Gebrselassie, the Great Ethiopian Run attracts world-class athletes, which included Irish Olympian Eamonn Coghlan, who features in the film, with David Gillick also taking part. More than 50,000 runners line up each year.
What begins as a sporting challenge quickly becomes something deeper. The runners are taken beyond the race and into different regions of Ethiopia, including Tigray in the north – an area devastated by recent conflict – and to refugee camps in Gambela, overwhelmed by people fleeing war in South Sudan.
In both places, the film documents the work of GOAL, showing how humanitarian aid is delivered in practice and the difference it makes to people’s lives.
“Like many people, the runners believed they had a general understanding of humanitarian aid before the trip. Seeing it first-hand – how donations become food, medical care, shelter, and daily sustenance – was confronting and transformative,” Mark said.
“The film captures that shift in perspective not through commentary, but through experience and witness. In many ways, it’s a reminder of how humanitarian aid functions at its most human level, not just in Ethiopia.”
Shortly after the crew returned, major international aid funding was withdrawn following the shutdown of USAID, and the consequences, Mark described as “immediate and visible”.
Wicklow filmmaker Mark O’Toole, with mothers at an intake facility for food aid in Tigray, Ethiopia.
“While the film itself does not engage in politics, that timing underlines its urgency. The hope is that audiences come away with a clearer understanding that organisations like GOAL don’t deal in abstractions – they save lives – and that continued support for humanitarian work has real-world impact, especially at moments like this.
“Ireland, I feel, has always been very good with humanitarian efforts. I think it’s in our DNA. It’s just a reminder of what it is people do and how this actually works in practice. That it has meaningful results. Then, when you take it away, what happens next? That’s what I wanted to sort of get across in the film.”
On taking part in the run itself, 10 kilometres at 8,000 feet, seasoned runner Mark said it “felt like a half-marathon”.
“It was brutal. It’s like going up a perpendicular hill and it’s never ending. You just can’t get enough oxygen. There were 50,000 runners in the race, and of those thousands of runners, there was a whole bunch of ex-world champions, including Haile Gebrselassie, a four-time Olympian.
“It is Africa’s largest road race in terms of the most organisation and size. And it’s quite spectacular. There’s the professional runners, and then there are all sorts out for a good day. It’s definitely one of the wildest things you could possibly imagine as road races go.”
The Great Ethiopian Run will take place this year on Sunday, November 22. Entrants need to fundraise and, as Mark said: “They’ll take you everywhere. I wouldn’t call it a holiday, but it is an experience.”
Tickets for Made in Wicklow presents The Powerscourt Edit: Documentaries are available from Eventbrite for €10. Beyond the Finish Line – The Great Ethiopian Run, is being shown on Sunday, February 1.