IFI Irish Film Archive
Introduction: The Trial of Roger Casement
Duration32s
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The Trial of Roger Casement
This newsreel contains various segments, the first short item capturing crowds gathering on Bow Street Magistrates Court waiting to hear the outcome of the trial of British diplomat turned Irish nationalist Sir Roger Casement. Only one piece of footage of Casement himself is known to exist, and for this Topical Budget’s newsreel, cameras had to improvise as his dramatic downfall played out. Arrested on April 21st 1916, hours after landing on the Kerry coast in a German submarine and just three days before the Easter Rising began in Dublin, Casement was whisked away to London to stand trial for treason. He was executed on August 3rd , his fate sealed by the discovery and distribution of the legendary ‘Black Diaries’, which contained accounts of his homosexual activities. His body was buried in quicklime at Pentonville Prison and his remains not repatriated to Ireland until 1965. The remaining segments include Sir John Maxwell inspecting the troops in the Trinity College grounds in May 1916 as well as soldiers stacking up Rifles and Pikes at Islandbridge Barracks.
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.
Introduction - Lenny Abrahamson
Our inaugural playlist, curated by director Lenny Abrahamson - renowned for his multi-Academy Award nominated Room (2015) and acclaimed independent films like Adam & Paul (2004), Garage (2007), What Richard Did (2012) and Frank (2014) - visits the Irish Film Institute to select his top picks of materials preserved in the IFI Irish Film Archive from the IFI Player. The films he has selected - from early stop-motion playfulness in Clock Tower Animation (1910s) to homemade sci-fi/horror by cinema-enthusiasts the Spence twins - span decades and counties, but all demonstrate a fascination and experimentation with film and story-telling that informs his unique way of seeing the world.
The Attack of the Saucer People - The Roy Spence Collection
Roger, a ciné enthusiast, enlists the support of fellow ciné-club members in the making of an amateur, sci-fi film. After inadvertently filming an actual alien spaceship, his group thinks he has upped his special effects budget and suspect nothing’s amiss. It won’t be long before Roger is paid another visit by the little green men, but will this be the end or will there be a sequel? Roy Spence is an award-winning amateur filmmaker. For the past 50 years, Spence has been making and screening a series of remarkable and sometimes eccentric films in his cinema in Comber, Co. Down. The films span many genres from sci-fi to horror to folk-life documentaries shot between 1965 and 1986. His collection of over 40 films (13 documentaries/non-fiction and 29 fiction feature films) is held and preserved in the IFI Irish Film Archive.
Introduction: The Irish Independence Film Collection with Ciara Chambers
An introduction to The Irish Independence Film Collection by Ciara Chambers followed by a playlist of curated newsreels with individual introductions and commentaries.
