IFI Irish Film Archive
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. Dear Daughter was the first televised exposure of the horrific abuse of hundreds of children in Ireland’s industrial schools. Christine Buckley bravely recounts the extent of the atrocities she experienced as a child in Dublin’s Goldenbridge orphanage in this drama-documentary. Born in Dublin, she was the daughter of a married Irish woman and a Nigerian medical student. At the age of three weeks old she was given up to be fostered. Dear Daughter delves into her traumatic childhood at the orphanage and her persistent determination to find her parents. Dear Daughter was one of several television documentaries (including Lentin’s Stolen Lives (1999) and Mary Rafferty’s States of Fear (1999)) which heightened public awareness of institutional abuse, and lead to the commissioning of the Murphy and Ryan reports, which investigated the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Dublin leading to a full State apology to victims of clerical child abuse by then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. Dear Daughter was awarded the Creative Excellence Award at the US International Film and TV Festival 1996 and was nominated for Social and Political Documentary, Banff Television Festival, 1996. With kind permission of Dr. Ronit Lentin.
It’s Dublin, 1999, and 76 year old Essie Keeling, Georgie her dog and her neighbour Karl Byrne are fighting eviction by property developers and homelessness. This timely, inspiring story of determination and resistance offers a crucial lens through which to view Dublin’s current housing crisis. Despite her age and ill health, the lovable Essie is a force to be reckoned with. She refuses an offer of one thousand pounds when asked to make way for the demolition and redevelopment of her home into luxury apartments. Gathering a mass of supporters, including Richard Boyd Barrett and Nell McCafferty, Essie and Karl make a stand that captures the public’s imagination and wins the heart of the audience. Don’t miss our exclusive clip below, where Loopline revisit Essie one year later. Director Liam McGrath has documented Irish society for over twenty years with a regular focus on Traveller Culture. He is known for the feature documentary Southpaw: The Francis Barrett Story (1998) and was winner of the 2015 Best Director Television IFTA for Dolores Keane: A Storm in the Heart.
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.
‘The day I don’t know who you are, promise to take me swimming’ – a melancholic promise between a husband and wife as her Alzheimer’s disease progresses. When Thady (Barry Ward) returns to his parents’ home for a neighbour’s wake, he is shocked by his mother’s decline (Olwen Fouéré, also seen in The Wake). Gone is the eloquent artist of the television interviews, and here now is a woman who has lost her capacity to carry out the most mundane tasks and spends her days in a local care centre. When he finds the crumpled promise in the pocket of an old dressing gown, the rest of his visit is spent bitterly resenting his mother’s condition and his father’s stoic acceptance. It is only when his mother goes missing in the middle of the night that he begins to understand how their love transcends her condition. Director Claire Dix and writer Ailbhe Keogan have since collaborated on the feature film Sunlight. This film is part of F-Rated: Short Films by Irish Women.
An advertisement for Valley Ice Cream, encouraging people to get their next ice cream pop from ‘the big red fridge’. Featuring all the favourites, including Choc Ice. Valley Ice Cream was based in Thurles, Co Tipperary, and closed in 1997.
A solitary woman walks through the eerie night-time landscape of Dublin’s Cork Street, a street once quiet and residential, now a four-laned artery for city traffic. Cork Street, as described by the narrators Councillor John Gallagher, architect Gerry Cahill, journalist Frank McDonald and sociologist Aileen O’Gorman, used to be a much better place to live than it is today. Gone are the days when people could easily cross the road to visit neighbours or children could safely play on the street. Urban planners carved out this four-laned artery to connect the city with its outlying suburbs. Furthermore, a decision to fence off open spaces in an attempt to prevent anti-social behaviour , succeeded only in promoting social isolation for the residents who still call Cork Street home. The isolation is embodied in the character of a young woman (actor Niamh Algar, nominated for a BAFTA for 2019’s Calm with Horses) who walks through the deserted urban landscape as memories are narrated which no longer match the present-day surroundings. This film is part of F-Rated: Short Films by Irish Women.