Discoveries from Ireland World Cinema

An elderly man near the end of his life passes lonely days writing letters to an old friend. The arrival of a new occupant in the home opens the doors to his past and changes everything.

With her son being held captive by a criminal gang, police-officer Amanda Doyle, together with her ex-husband and three unlikely allies, takes part in a desperate plot to hold a wealthy banker and his family to ransom. But this is no ordinary family.

Malachy: "Who do you kidnap? You can't touch children, women, no sons of Irish mothers. What's left?" When Frankie is released from Portlaoise Prison, his old comrades are expecting some action. He hits on a plan for raising £2 million, but his plan goes wrong.

Feature documentary on the 3-days of riots in Derry, Northern Ireland that led to the deployment of British Troops into Derry in August 1969.

A gathering of friends is thrown into chaos by the opening of a mysterious fiery sinkhole near their secluded holiday home.

Based on true events, a young girl's life is turned upside down when her grandmother's strange behaviour sparks fears of witchcraft. As her family struggles to reconcile illness with the supernatural, she must navigate the streets of Kinshasa in order to protect the grandmother she knows and loves.

Set in 1815, a young Englishman touring Europe encounters more than he bargained for. His pursuit of the beautiful Countess St. Alyre brings him into contact with the Marquis D'Armanville and other odd characters. A series of bizarre murders occur, bringing our hero to the borderland of nightmare.

Exploring the Nobel Prize winning 'bog poems' of Seamus Heaney and the wild Irish bog landscape. Written by novelist Colm Tóibín, the film features poem readings by Michelle Fairley and is narrated by Oscar nominated actor Ciarán Hinds.

Reeling from a recent separation, a single mother and her young son move into a pub-attached house and fall prey to their invasive new landlord.

A baby whale separated from his family discovers a caged bird, the sole survivor of a shipwreck. Together they struggle to survive, lost at sea.

After her father leaves her mother for her best friend, a devastated Bobbie embarks on a chaotic campaign of revenge.

Em is 7-months pregnant and feels no connection to the baby inside her. She tries to follow the instructions of an outdated tape called How to Connect with your Unborn Child – chaos ensues.

Loosely inspired by the director’s own memory of a girl’s disappearance from her village, the film follows Arlene, a young factory worker living alone in a rural Irish community.

Facing job loss and a best friend’s emigration, Benny forms a ragtag Sunday league football team to cling to the past, sparking a messy romance with his lost-in-life housemate, Laura, only to confront heartbreak and fading hope on and off the pitch.

The Fuente de Piedra lagoon in Spain is home to one of the largest flocks of flamingos in Europe. Once a year, the adolescent birds perform a dance that looks like... flamenco! But when the flock is attacked by hateful podencos (wild dogs) our heroine Rosie, a fun, dance crazy flamingo, loses her beloved sister and the flamenco is cancelled henceforth. She grows up a shadow of her former self, robbed of her sisters love and the joy of dance. One day she meets Carlos, an exuberant lizard, who encourages her to dance once more - rekindling her inner flame. Over time, she transforms back into her old confident self, before leading her flock to face down the podencos and dance once more.

Two candles meet and fall in love, but discover that when they touch, the heat of their combined flames causes them to rapidly melt. Now they both must choose to live apart, or make the ultimate sacrifice for love.

After a daring escape from Dark Portal Penitentiary, Mr. Hillbilly and Pitrensky Norovich return to the Jeremiah Residence to lie low, after a scuffle with local militia the two form an inseparable bond. As Mr. Hillbilly rediscovers his old home in Texas his sense of reality begins to falter as he laments on past memories the residence held over him. Both of them indulge in the life they never had, before something embedded in the past returns to haunt Mr. Hillbilly.

A last laugh tale of two old friends, their teeth and a fishing trip that leaves them lost for words.

A young man with Down's Syndrome tricks his sister into a road trip to go to a concert, while being pursued by their mum. With no phones, no money and no plan, can they make it?

Orhan Pamuk – Turkey’s Nobel laureate for Literature – opens a museum in Istanbul. A museum that’s a fiction: its objects trace a tale of doomed love in '70s Istanbul. The film takes a tour of the objects as the starting point for a trip through images, landscapes and the chemistry of the city. A film about Istanbul, love, memory and loss.

8-year-old Terry comes to stay with his uncle and aunt on their farm on one of the magical Irish isles. But this is a lonely place for a little boy whose mother has just died... A movie of Celtic pathos, "The Schooner" will remain in the memory long after its viewing.

Documentary film about Martin Park, a homeless man living in Dublin, and his friendship with photographer and filmmaker Donal Moloney.

Dreaming the Quiet Man’ includes interviews with aficionados of Ford like, Martin, Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovicz, Jim Sheridan, William Dowling, and Joe McBride. There is mesmeric archive and rare photographs of the making of the film. The main location of the documentary is Ford’s ancestral homeland of Connemara, on the west coat of Ireland, where his parents were born. We meet Ford’s cousins, the Feeney’s who tell the story of Ford’s parent’s departure from Ireland after the Great Famine and the young Ford’s return to Ireland in 1922 to visit his cousins the Thornton’s and saw their house being burned down by the infamous Black and Tans. Ford, under the pretense of scouting locations for a movie, gave money to the IRA. We travel to Portland Maine where Ford grew up and went on to become a director in the first bloom of Hollywood. The boy made it good but Ireland was always on his mind.

Documentary profile of the acclaimed Irish actor.

Take a nostalgic trip along the beautiful Dublin coast, escaping the hustle and bustle of the city while enjoying the clatter and clang of the old Howth tram. This film records one of the last journeys of the Howth Tram, as it passes through the village, past the golf club, and along the coast – a most elegant form of transport from a bygone era.

Fear and superstition take hold of a young family during a time of great hunger in 1879 Ireland.

This documentary features a kinetic artist who creates vibrant mixed media works that push the boundary between 2D and 3D.

When impulsive rebel Hannah goads her friends into summoning a demon for some hellish hijinks, the gang are totally bedevilled by what they bring to Earth. It's a demon alright, but one in training who needs help to "earn his devil horns"!

In a small country pub, three Irish farmers are enjoying an afternoon’s drink when an unusual stranger walks in. His curious behaviour entertains them for a while but they won’t want someone like him hanging around their local for too long.

Rory Gallagher was the original Irish guitar hero, whose artistry with a battered ’61 Stratocaster became the stuff of legend. Bob Dylan and Muddy Waters admired him, the Rolling Stones tried to hire him – and his fans worshipped him. Clad in faded denim and a checked shirt, he sold 30 million records and became a charismatic icon of Irish music, inspiring musicians such as Brian May, The Edge, Slash and Johnny Marr. But away from the stage, Rory was an intensely private man. His closest confidante was his brother Dónal who accompanied Rory on his rise from their childhood Everly Brothers stage performances and the Showband scene across the North and South of the Irish border through to the deafening heart of the ‘70s rock scene in London – and far beyond. Now, Dónal, along with insights from Rory’s friends and admirers, takes us on a musical journey through the life and career of this shy guitar hero to better understand what made him so great.

A 'Back To The Future'-obsessed traveller boy strives to finish building his own DeLorean replica before his family are evicted from their halting site.

A journey into the woods causes two stoners to question their friendship and purpose in life - while they try to avoid a devious figure named Mr Flanagan.

After the sudden death of his parents, a young man must choose between returning to his home village in the west of Ireland to care for his estranged younger brother, and a bright future in Canada.

After being imprisoned for dangerous driving, causing the death of a child and possession of illegal substances, Jason Buckley is finding it difficult to adjust to life outside prison.

A well known storyteller, Tomas O' Diorain tells tales of the sea around a fire in an old Irish cottage. His storytelling is juxtaposed with images of the sea. This film, thought lost was rediscovered by Houghton Library curators during a cataloging update in 2013.

A tale about isolation and lack of communication, the gap between the reality a teenage boy lives, and how he would like it be. He has a secret that he would like to tell his family, something that he has come to terms with and is about to affect the rest of his life. But how will they react?

When the lawyer- and brother- of a dying patriarch commits suicide, it sets into motion a chain of murders which tears their family apart.

Based on real stories, using both actors and non-actors, and filmed on location in Dublin, A Week in the Life of Martin Cluxton (1971) is a rare example of Irish social realism. After years in an industrial school, Martin Cluxton (Derek King) returns home to Dublin but finds considerable prejudice and little opportunity. Broadcast on RTÉ, it was directed by Brian MacLochlainn, co-written by Caoimhín Ó Marcaigh and MacLochlainn, with music by jazz great Louis Stewart.

Lesbian director Brigid McFall and lesbian photographer Vic Lentaigne create a series of intimate, revealing portraits of what it means to be lesbian in 2022, exploring why it is that so many young women who are sexually attracted to other women now prefer to identify as queer.

A young woman on a bike ride suffers a head injury and is transported back in time to an event which occurred on the same spot years before during the Irish War of Independence when an informer was captured by the IRA.

A porch pirate opens an unusual package, unaware that its contents belong to a cult.

A woman's body is found under the waters of a lake in the countryside, and the arrival of a Detective from Dublin is the last thing Peggy, the owner of Casey's Pub, needs as she tries to save her business and her family.

It's post famine and bare-knuckle boxer Dan Power is trying to earn enough money to escape to an easier life in America, but he's starting to suspect that his manager Matty Gandon is ripping him off.

Several years after the suicide of a long term girlfriend, David is in a new relationship. However, a chance encounter with the dead woman's sister raises complex questions about just how complicit he was in her death.

Enda Walsh's play Misterman, written for a solo performer, is a study of one man’s descent into religious mania in small-town Ireland.

A eulogy to the greatest institution in Irish society, the pub, or more specifically the traditional Irish publicans who run them. Speaking to pub owners all over Ireland, Alex Fegan gets into the heart of what makes "the Irish pub" the institution that it is.

In a small house, on the Irish coast, a woman writes a letter to an unknown correspondent. She ponders the evanescence of memory and art. Her home brims with traces of life—faded photographs, scattered artworks, some unfinished. All is shrouded by the constant murmur of the sea: that vast canvas of everything that was and will be.

It's Christmas! Come & celebrate the festive season with Bing... at the Cinema! Meet Nicky... Sula's adorable cousin and open presents with Bing, Flop & all of their friends! Pico's here to wish you all a Merry Christmas. Come and make leaf pictures in the woods with Amma, watch Bing & Sula perform a Puppet Show, and enjoy a grand finale of extra special Christmas stories! So, come on! Let's celebrate together - let's go, go, go, go, goooooo!

Irish-born journalist Peter Lennon examines the contemporary (1967) state of the Republic of Ireland, posing the question, “What do you do with your revolution once you’ve got it?” It argues that Ireland was dominated by cultural isolationism, Gaelic and clerical traditionalism at the time of its making.

Part one of a three part short film saga about a criminal gang member, Danny, who falls out with his boss, mates, another gang, his girlfriend is kidnapped and if that wasn't bad enough, he's gone and won the lottery. Sometimes winning isn't all that lucky.

Ireland, Easter, 1916. In Dublin, Irish rebel Patrick Pearse leads a revolt to free Ireland from the grips of the British Empire. Owen, a young Irish patriot, wants to join them in their fight for freedom.

Deadly tells the story of Boney, a working stiff who doesn’t care about his dead-end job. That is until, he has a run-in with a spirited old lady named Bridie. Academy award winner, Brenda Fricker and Love/Hate star Peter Coonan lend their voices to this bittersweet animated short about life, death and dancin'!

Exodus charts the decline of the Protestant population from Derry’s Cityside - which saw up to one in five of the City’s population leave their homes over a thirty year period. Directed and produced by Vinny Cunningham and John Peto, Exodus is the final film in the three part trilogy that commenced with Battle of the Bogside and No Go: Free Derry.

As the 36th anniversary of her brother's disappearance looms, a woman starts to receive phone calls which she believes hold the clues to what happened to him all those years ago.

A cash-strapped dad gets a job as the mascot of a chicken takeaway to make ends meet for his young family. They need to fly the nest of his overbearing mother, but can the plucky dad make it even to his first payday, dressed as a giant chicken?

Follows the discoveries of reporters after the disappearance of the 7th Earl of Lucan, Richard John Bingham after the murder of his children's nanny.

This is the fascinating true life story of one of Ireland's most famous unsolved murders. It is the tale of how an innocent man was found guilty but insane of the brutal homicide of a young woman from a very prominent family. Told in superb period detail, Scapegoat contains a combustible mix of sex, class, bogus respectability and dark domestic secrets

Only Death Will Show You How To Live.

Events force best friends Mark and Lucas to have a day without using their phones, meaning no contact with Mark’s heavily pregnant wife Claire. But when Claire’s waters break, she cannot contact Mark and is rushed to hospital. Meanwhile Mark falls at home, suffering a back injury. With phone service restored, they reconcile in hospital as two becomes three.