It has been a great year for Irish film. Black 47 took over €1 million in the Irish box office making it the highest grossing Irish film of the year reimagining Irish history in a Western-style, action-packed revenge thriller. Dublin Old School took us back to the not-so-distant past, where the older ravers among us could relive those drug-taking days to the visceral soundtrack of their youth. We were brought bang up-to-date with Paddy Breathnach’s emotionally-charged Rosie, a feature reflecting on the human fall-out from our current housing crisis. That left Aoife McArdle to haunt our dreams, with her hallucinatory representation of the journey from teen to adult; Kissing Candice was a confident debut from a talented filmmaker that we look forward to seeing more of.
Documentary continued to shine a light on a variety of subjects close to Irish hearts, such as Katrina Costello’s The Silver Branch, which expressed a romantic and beautiful declaration of love for nature and Ireland’s rich historical connection to the land. Land was also at the heart of The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid, a fascinating study of one man’s fight against the state for his land. Ross Whittaker’s Katie takes off the gloves and delivers an emotional, honest retelling of one of our countries biggest success stories to date – the phoenix that is Katie Taylor. Meanwhile Donal Foreman’s The Image You Missed was a deeply personal exploration of documentarist Arthur MacCaig, Foreman’s deceased father. And there was Sinead O’Shea’s gripping film A Mother Brings Her Son to Be Shot, an absorbing study of a post-peace-process Derry
Features
Rosie
” timely, well executed and – more than anything else – important.”
Michael Inside
“Dafhyd Flynn delivers an understated, emotional performance as Michael. Quiet and contemplative, his vulnerability is made evident as his incarceration looms.”
(Loretta Goff)
Dublin OldSchool
” will have you sucking on your soother necklace.”
(Gemma Creagh)
Black 47
“a rollicking western with fantastic action and excellent performances”
(Sarah Cullen)
Kissing Candice
“a visual thrill”
Stephen Porzio
Documentaries
The Silver Branch
“a testament to patience, determination and love of a place.”
(Ruth McNally )
The Image You Missed
“engaging and evocative in both form and content.”
(Siomha McQuinn)
Katie
“a beautiful, complex piece of cinema, as nuanced and fascinating as the superstar herself.”
(Gemma Creagh)
The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid
“a rebel with a cause”
A Mother Brings Her Son to Be Shot
“compelling, challenging and at times chilling.”
(Siomha McQuinn)
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