IFI Irish Film Archive
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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.
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14m 00s
Missing Green
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.
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15m 00s
The Drip
In 1985, two teenagers break into a cinema at night to watch the comical story of a woman waiting impatiently for her boyfriend to return home from the pub. The man’s actions cause utter chaos upon his return home to their apartment. Despite his inebriation he decides to climb, half-naked, out of bed and under the sink to fix a dripping tap. A curious cat surprises him with its attentions causing him to accidentally knock himself out. His long-suffering girlfriend calls an ambulance and, relieved to hear he’ll be alright in the morning, allows herself a little laugh as he is carried off still drunk, still naked, for a night in hospital. This idiosyncratic short film provided a vehicle for the fledgling directorial talents of Trish McAdam, and for a large and impressive cast of young actors including Jack Lynch, Pom Boyd, Mannix Flynn, and a young Aidan Gillen (as Aidan Murphy). This film is part of F-Rated: Short Films by Irish Women.
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21m 00s
Reflections - Ireland
Reflections – Ireland is a stunning, non-narrated tourist film with accompanying music by Paddy Moloney and The Chieftains. Many of Paddy Carey films depict a scarcity of civilisation, an untouched landscape, but here he treats the viewer to the beauties of landscape interwoven with a vivid tapestry of human activity: anglers in a lively river; bird-watchers at work; sheep farmers; horse riders; seaweed gatherers. A nighttime sequence shows people gathering in an unidentified village for music in a cosy pub. This film is part of The Patrick Carey Collection.
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11m 51s
Irish Co-operative Gathers Peat
In this 1920s newsreel, an Irish co-operative digs, stacks and gathers turf. It is an activity involving the whole community - even the local priest is involved in overseeing the sacks of turf loaded onto a barge before being transported by canal. The crew work tirelessly to load a barge. ‘Rathangan’ is inscribed on the side of the barge and a man waves an ‘Up Kildare’ flag in shot. The turf is possibly extracted from the Bog of Allen – a large, raised bogland stretching over 5 counties in Ireland. In the 19th and early 20th century, non-agriculturally viable bogland was Ireland’s primary indigenous fuel resource. It is estimated that 6 million tonnes of sod turf was produced in 1921. In Ireland today a focus has shifted to a more environment-friendly energy production and there has been an attempt to restore Irish boglands. This film is part of The Irish Independence Film Collection – The Early Irish Free State that explores facets of Irish society after the War of Independence and up to the birth of the Irish Republic.
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30m 00s
Gore Vidal - Imprint: Writers in Profile
This episode of Writers in Profile features the novelist, playwright, screenwriter and essayist, Gore Vidal. We gain a glimpse of Vidal’s early childhood, the controversy around his novel The City and the Pillar, and his experience writing scripts for films such as Ben Hur (1959). A desire to dissect the roots of American society has spurred him to coax readers to revise their sense of reality. Vidal believes this work can be divided into two kinds of novel – the first is built from reflections of history and the others are ‘fictive inventions’. The Big Bang theory and reincarnation are explored, and Vidal expresses how ‘very lucky’ he has been in life and work. Imprint, a literature review programme, and its sister show Imprint: Writer in Profile screened on RTÉ1 for three seasons. Both were presented by Irish poet, writer and lecturer Theo Dorgan. Over the course of the Writer in Profile series Dorgan conducted extended, in-depth interviews with a wide range of Irish and international writers including Colm Tóibín, Bernard MacLaverty, Jennifer Johnston, Joseph O’Connor, Michael Longley, Doris Lessing, John Montague, Eavan Boland, Gore Vidal, Richard Ford and Margaret Atwood.