IFI Irish Film Archive

Blessed Fruit

Year1999 Duration16m 00s

Orla Walsh’s irreverent nativity tale of a woman who seeks divine intervention when she thinks she is pregnant but is unsure who the father is. Filmmaker Orla Walsh has made several short dramas, some serious, some comedic and all foregrounding women’s issues viewed through a feminist lens. Here she addresses the serious issue of unplanned pregnancy but with a bold and humorous tone. She is well served by her cast which includes Stella Feehily, Paul Roe and Conor Mullen.

Our second IFI Filmmaker Playlist is curated by filmmaker and visual artist Trish McAdam. Since the production of her early shorts in the 1980s, Trish has created a vibrant and varied body of work, embracing a range of forms and subjects and retaining a singular, independent voice. We're delighted to welcome Trish to the Irish Film Institute to select her top picks from films preserved in the IFI Irish Film Archive and presented on the IFI Archive Player. ‘Who needs a pregnant waitress?’ is just one of the questions that fills Ellie Connolly’s mind when she discovers she is pregnant in 1980s Ireland. Statistic was made by film student Alison Kelly in 1983, the year which saw the passing of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution Act (which effectively criminalised abortion in most circumstances). Ellie (Edel McCrann) is pregnant as “the result of a drunken screw between two people who hardly knew each other”.  She broods in her flat and discusses her predicament with her good friend Anne – she must tell her boyfriend Paul but she knows ’In the end it’s inside me, not him’.  She finds information in a magazine about abortion services in the UK and Anne accompanies her to the ferry – following the footsteps of the many women before her. Statistic is invaluable as a contemporaneous response to events in 1983 – the film includes newspaper headlines and filmed sequences of pro and anti-abortion marches and dramatizes the plight of a young woman dealing with a crisis pregnancy. It is also a vivid record of the sights and sounds of Dublin in the 1980s  - not least in the colourful cameos from mime artist Raymond Keane and indie band The Cuba Dares.

27m 00s

Statistic

‘Who needs a pregnant waitress?’ is just one of the questions that fills Ellie Connolly’s mind when she discovers she is pregnant in 1980s Ireland. Statistic was made by film student Alison Kelly in 1983, the year which saw the passing of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution Act (which effectively criminalised abortion in most circumstances).  Ellie (Edel McCrann) is pregnant as “the result of a drunken screw between two people who hardly knew each other”.  She broods in her flat and discusses her predicament with her good friend Anne – she must tell her boyfriend Paul but she knows ’In the end it’s inside me, not him’.  She finds information in a magazine about abortion services in the UK and Anne accompanies her to the ferry – following the footsteps of the many women before her. Statistic is invaluable as a contemporaneous response to events in 1983 – the film includes newspaper headlines and filmed sequences of pro and anti-abortion marches and dramatizes the plight of a young woman dealing with a crisis pregnancy. It is also a vivid record of the sights and sounds of Dublin in the 1980s  - not least in the colourful cameos from mime artist Raymond Keane and indie band The Cuba Dares. This film is part of F-Rated: Short Films by Irish Women.

14m 31s

Come Back to Erin - Trish McAdam Filmmaker Playlist

Our second IFI Filmmaker Playlist is curated by filmmaker and visual artist Trish McAdam. Since the production of her early shorts in the 1980s, Trish has created a vibrant and varied body of work, embracing a range of forms and subjects and retaining a singular, independent voice. We're delighted to welcome Trish to the Irish Film Institute to select her top picks from films preserved in the IFI Irish Film Archive and presented on the IFI Archive Player. Only one reel of this three-reel film has survived the ravages of time and so the tale is incomplete – but worth watching nonetheless. In this transatlantic tale, feisty young Peggy O’Malley (Gene Gauntier) refuses her father's orders to marry Jerry, the village blacksmith and runs away to New York City via steam-liner. Upon landing in New York she gets a job working as a parlour maid in the home of wealthy Mrs Mortimer. The film includes striking documentary-like elements in scenes set in Ireland – at the cattle market in Killarney and scenes of the emigrant ship leaving Queenstown (now Cobh) for America. This is all that survives of the film. Contemporaneous reviews fill in the remaining story : It’s not long before Peggy falls into a bad crowd and soon finds herself arrested for a crime she didn’t commit. With the news of Peggy’s arrest having made its way back home, will her blacksmith in shining armour come to save her from her wrongful imprisonment and take her back to Ireland? A single reel of this 3 reel film was discovered in the Museum of Modern Art following research by IFI in preparation for a major retrospective of Irish cinema in MOMA in 2011.

15m 00s

Into the Abyss

A fictional story of a young woman who unexpectedly returns home to Dublin for Christmas. She has been in London for ten months but reveals little about her new life. Sandra feels alienated from her family and they are clearly resentful about her sudden and unannounced return. The atmosphere is laden with tension, in stark contrast to traditional depictions of happy families at Christmastime, a contrast which is underscored by the harmonious sounds of Cantique and The Voice Squad. Sandra is reminded of the difficulties which forced her to leave home. Faced with renewed hostility, she chooses not to disclose the truth of her new life and after a brief and unhappy stay, she returns to London and a life of grinding hardship. This film is part of F-Rated: Short Films by Irish Women.

2m 55s

Introduction - Trish McAdam Filmmaker Playlist

Our second IFI Filmmaker Playlist is curated by filmmaker and visual artist Trish McAdam. Since the production of her early shorts in the 1980s, Trish has created a vibrant and varied body of work, embracing a range of forms and subjects and retaining a singular, independent voice. Snakes and Ladders (1997), her debut feature, was one of the first Irish films directed by a woman about contemporary women’s lives, and she continued to position women squarely on screen with her ground-breaking documentary series, Hoodwinked: Irish Women Since the 1920s. Her interest in other artists is evident in her documentary profiles of Leo O’Kelly, Donal O’Kelly and Liu Xiabo. She has recently explored new modes of storytelling in her formally exciting short films Strangers to Kindness (2015) and Confinement (2019). We’re delighted to welcome Trish to the Irish Film Institute to select her top picks from films preserved in the IFI Irish Film Archive and presented on the IFI Archive Player. Trish approached the IFI Archive Player looking to discover some hidden gems showing an alternative Irish character. Her choices can be broken down into three eras: early representations of Ireland on film (1910s – 1920s); changing culture in Ireland (1950s – 1970s); and contemporary Irish filmmaking (1980s – 2000s). The wide-ranging selection, in her own words ‘not so much a tip of an iceberg, as a scattering within the iceberg,’ is free to watch on the IFI Archive Player anywhere in the world.

20m 00s

The Wake

A woman’s reflection on her life is expressed through poetic voiceover and dance. In a light-filled period mansion, a woman (Olwen Fouéré) reflects on her life, her sexuality and moments of great joy and sadness - her memories are articulated by a troupe of women of various ages through the eloquent language of dance. When the woman passes away, she is waked by the dancers and animated afresh in a vigorous, liberating ritual involving fire and water. Oonagh Kearney’s stunning film weaves together the art of dance (in the choreography of Cindy Cummings in collaboration with the director and cast); of music (in Linda Buckley’s ethereal score); and of cinema, to explore women’s experience, silence, domestic enclosure, the potent power of memory and the possibility of liberation. The filmmakers would like to dedicate this film’s inclusion in the F-Rated Collection to Emma O'Kane. This film is part of F-Rated: Short Films by Irish Women.