Discoveries from Ireland World Cinema

Pat O'Sullivan is an ordinary teenager. He studies. He like sports. He has dreams and aspirations like every other person. Unfortunately there is a tremendous weight on his shoulders. Listen to his confession.

Ryan, an old gricer, leans over his model train set and revisits the scene of the crime. With the aid of a familiar voice, maybe this time he can solve the puzzle that has haunted him throughout all these years.

A short experimental film about the effects digital noise and lack of privacy can have on interpersonal connection.

A wry tale of how one women’s sensuality is confined by a garden fence. A woman breaks free of her monotonous daily routine tending to her husband by escaping into her garden; its sensual pleasures evident in her minutely-observed expressions of delight. The garden’s sights and sounds offer welcome distraction as do the attentions of her neighbour. This winsome, dialogue-free film celebrates the often-overlooked sensuality of older women.

An exploration of the passing of time as Mary recalls memories of her late husband Dennis. Moments from the 1960s imprinted onto Dennis's cine reels.

City saints.

Dursey Island is linked to the mainland by a single cable car. This lifeline allows its people to call Dursey Island home. Each day it brings new people, challenges, and life to this island.

Partially based on true events, director Roma Harvey shows how a chance encounter in Derry during the Troubles can have consequences decades later.

A child is toyed with and tormented in Salem Massachusetts, 1687.

A portrait of one of the greatest English-language poets of his generation, this joyful and penetrating documentary was made with the late Seamus Heaney's unprecedented collaboration. The film explores the key personal relationship in his life, that with his wife Marie, and follows him to Harvard, New York and London, to readings, signings and public interviews. Offering compelling insights into the working life of a major writer, it digs deep into the rich store of Heaney's poetry to reveal a man who lived his life fully; used his gifts to give expression to the great themes in all our lives of love, loss and longing; and managed, as a man and as a writer, to combine the simplicity of a farmer's son from County Derry with the sophistication of a major artist.

A journey into the dark visions of a small coastal town. Memories of the inhabitants or memories created by the place itself.

'Living in a Coded Land' is a poetic and imaginative film essay that makes unexpected links between events and locations, history and contemporary life. The film revolves around the notion of a sense of place and stories associated with place, reflecting on the subterranean traces of the past in the present and probing themes such as the impact of colonialism, emigration, the famine, land, housing and the place of art in society. Making extensive use of archive from RTÉ and the IFI, the film seeks to explore the more elusive layers of meaning that make up this country.

A Series Of Interlocking Segments Utilizing & Distorting The Physical Form To Express Trauma, Pain & The Lasting Effects Of The Past On The Present. Taking A Directly Physical Approach In Expressing These Struggles. Freeing The Images From Their Ghosts In The Process.

Ronan, who hails from the people's republic of cork, is struggling to fit in in Dublin City (aka da big shmoke), as he lets his date, Eve, out of his apartment he starts to realize he can't keep up his facade any longer.

Blurring the lines of truth and fiction, this sociological essay film collages moments of distant future with observations on technology led evolution and what may come next for humanity. In the image of stone is a meditation on the idea of permanence. Paced as if the viewer were flicking through radio stations, each segment contributes a small part to a greater narrative of where we came from and where we're going.

The transition year group goes for a trip to Manchester.

Drawn to the excitement of the city, our hero soon finds a re-appreciation for his country life.

While trying to take her own life, Mai is interrupted when a young, pregnant woman in distress calls to her door in desperate need of help.

Captured Over Several Sleepless Nights. An Attempt To Relate Internal Struggles Through The Psychical Form. A Closeness Of Expression, Vulnerable And Manic. A Cathartic Release To An Outer Realm. The Mind Speaking Through The Body. Two Destructive Forces, Becoming One And Destroying In Unison.

A film about the Forty Foot swimming spot in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland, and the people who flock there every day.

A Deaf woman struggles in the aftermath of her father's passing. Friendship, an unexpected turn of events and a simple moment of connection are her salvation.

A husband and father is driven to the edge.

The village of Rhode takes to the big screen for an event like no other. Watch as some of the community's brightest personalities take on some of cinema's biggest characters. Films such as The Young Offenders, A Few Good Men, The Field, Sister Act, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Derry Girls and The Snapper. Watch all of them on the Rhode GAA YouTube channel!

In the lead up to the finale of a prestigous dance competition, a promising dancer is driven by external expectations to enhance her body at any cost, leading to a climatic crash-out on stage.

Mirroring The Distance Between Natural Surroundings And Internal Separation. Duel Vision Within A Deepened State Of Dissociation. Nature And Psychosis Side By Side, Thinly Divided And Relentlessly Oppressive. Moments Which Could Not Last, Captured Briefly Alongside Their Reckoning.

The Colorado River is drying up. Reservoirs are falling to record lows and drought ravages the borderlands of the United States and Mexico. The heavily engineered water systems of the American Southwest buckle under the strain of an expanding population. Life for those on the fringes begins to unravel.

Struggling to care for her ailing mother, Lisa finds solace and connection in the familiar act of sharing tea.

A small time criminal is tasked with killing a rat…whom he just so happens to share a past with.

A man returns home.

A girl faces her guilt after receiving a message.

Filmed over four years across kitchen tables, protests, and public meetings, Displace: The Battle For Dublin tells the story of a city fighting for itself as a broken property market ruthlessly chews up its citizens for profit – pushing out communities of every kind and leaving a generation trapped in their parents’ box rooms. From evicted tenants to artists without studios, from market traders to mothers living in overcrowded accommodation, the film follows an emerging movement demanding justice, housing, and dignity. Though rooted in Dublin, the forces at work are global: a financialised property system reshaping cities everywhere, treating homes as assets and people as obstacles. Weaving through the lives of artists, residents, musicians, renters, academics, and activists, this urgent city symphony reveals an urban landscape shifting beneath their feet – and a people rediscovering their collective power, refusing to be pushed out or displaced.

A short documentary about women's football in Ireland.

Broadcaster Dearbhail McDonald examines the role of nuns in Ireland to see how they have shaped Irish lives, including her own, for better or for worse.

Garfield, Odie, and Jon are here. May God have mercy on us all.

A woman, returns to a family funeral to find out the truth about her father.

Booka Brass bring their signature sound to the intimate Other Voices live show series at St. James' Church in Dingle, Ireland.

Two mates hanging out one day uncover the truth about their peer who is said to be Blind.

A bathroom conversation between two friends, where a single possibility of pregnancy threatens to unravel their entire future.

A call centre recruiter reconsiders his dull existence after receiving a call from a free-spirited customer.

Opening with a quotation from Sebastian Barry's novel "The Secret Scripture", in which the main character is a resident in a Roscommon mental institution, the film takes us on a haunting tour of a vast and desolate building, once an Irish asylum. The voices of former residents describe their experience recounting their loneliness and suffering, and harsh practice of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Their recollections reveal how people were committed and shed light on the social, economic and political factors that lead to their admission. The decision to feature voices and not faces allows the residents to maintain their anonymity. (from IFI Archive)

A son visits his reclusive father

Documentary profile of the life and beliefs of Irish nationalist Pádraig Pearse.

A young boy steals away from an old man's wake and wanders into the surrounding countryside.

Adaptation from David Thomson's book "People of the Sea", telling of his experience as a child, when he first encounters a selchie. Told in drawings of sand, a material inhabiting the space between land and sea, like the selchie itself.

Legendary folk singer Christy Moore sits down with Liam O'Connor, director of the Irish Traditional Music Archive, to reflect on a lifetime of song. With contributions from some of Ireland's best-known artists.

This documentary tells the extraordinary story of George Best and his time with Cork Celtic on the 50th anniversary of his time in League of Ireland, featuring exclusive interviews and rare archive footage of Best in action in Cork.

The film focuses on lives of children with a range of physical disabilities who are resident in Baldoyle Children’s Hospital. Children are seen in the classroom, playground and occupational therapy room working with nurses and with nuns of the Sisters of Charity order who run the hospital. The film ends with a call for support and donations for the hospital. The film was directed and produced by Colm Ó Laoghaire. Colm’s son, Art, recalls that when the hospital approached his father about the film, there was next to no budget for production. Colm managed to assemble the necessary crew to work on the film for free and the only significant costs were from the labs in London. The film provides a valuable record of institutional care at that time. Some aspects of the educational and therapeutic methods in use and the language used to describe the children and their capabilities may appear very primitive to contemporary viewers.

A comedic short film about three housemates decorating their Christmas tree.

M.A. Littler's film diary, Beyond the White Rains, subtly reflects the dichotomy of man, mind, and place. In Littler's singular style, the film juxtaposes an author's interior landscape with the dramatic exterior of a remote coastal setting. Set within the interior of an old whaler's cottage, the film captures the ever-changing weather, the impervious sea, and moving clouds, reflecting a lifelong study of the interaction between man and place. Enigmatic, elegiac, and at times eerie, the film's pared-down images and otherworldly sound design reveal both the external beauty and the haunting interior landscape.

Originally shot on Super 8mm film and partially blown up to 16mm for the creation of collages made up of abstract and composed photograms, the film explores in a medium-specific way the self-experimental search for artistic, gender and sexual identity of Zurich-based movement artist/teacher and former architect Toma Alice Péronnet.

After suffering a recent loss, a young mother brings her daughter on a trip to Inis Oírr island to connect with her. Set over 3 days in Spring, this film explores the rebuilding of a fractured mother daughter relationship. An intimate story of love, loss and learning to communicate.

Halloween, often seen as an American custom, dates back to the Celtic festival of Samhain, which was already known in Gaul and Ireland. A two-thousand-year-old bronze calendar attests to this tradition. At that time, people believed that the gates to “another world” were open. The documentary uses archaeological evidence to show how Celtic customs gave rise to the modern Halloween festival.

When a young girl moves into a secluded house on the edge of an ancient forest, she discovers a mysterious fairy ring hidden within. Drawn by curiosity, she crosses a threshold never meant to be broken - unleashing the preternatural, as the forgotten rules of the old world claw their way back.

An Audio-Visual Incantation. Reworking Distorted And Layered Footage From 3 1920’s Exploitation/Explicit Films With Horror And Satanic Elements. The Footage Under Hypnotic Hues And Flashes Of Sight Beckoning A Relation Of The Psychology Of Depravation. The Merest Glimpses Of The Effect Accompanied By An Intrusive, Beating Soundtrack, Conjuring A Subtle Perversion Of Visual Disturbance.

A short documentary about the beekeeping community in County Louth

A year in the life of the Sightless Cinema audio drama network, as they embark on their biggest show to date. The Sightless Cinema network is a group of blind and visually impaired people who create audio dramas for performance in theatres and cinemas. Founded in 2015 by theatre director Ciarán Taylor, and sound artist Rachel Ní Chuinn, Sightless Cinema has grown from a tiny group to a nationwide community. Director Gareth Stack followed Sightless Cinema as they rehearsed and performed their new show across Ireland. Members of the group candidly discuss their sight loss and how their lives have been shaped by blindness. We watch their creative process in action. As Sightless Cinema turn their lived experiences of blindness into compelling audio theatre.

Couples from mixed Protestant and Catholic marriages recount the difficulties they’ve encountered in a divided society, including rejection by their families, friction in the workplace, intimidation in their neighbourhoods, and the bullying suffered by their children for choices made by their parents. They also detail their strategies of resistance and survival, and significant instances of unexpected moral support from across the sectarian divide.

Martin is a 52 year old father with a warm heart, and a humorous attitude to life. Through hardship, he has developed an obsessive hobby with creating projects around his home for himself and his family. Through the years he has transformed his house from an old nuns convent into a place for his children to call home. A deeper purpose lies beneath his projects, a method to manage his losses.

Heavily Distorting Footage From "Hour Of The Wolf" By Ingmar Bergman. With An Express Focus On Faces And Bodies. Hollowing And Pronouncing Facial Features And Through Repetition Of Movement, Furthering A Preexisting Horror, Creating An Intensified Alter Reality. Form, Flesh And Soul Buried In Distortion