A Trilogy of Gems

A Trilogy of Gems… Celebrating the work of the Award Winning Film Director, Dónal Foreman.

The season includes screenings of

The Image You Missed - Sat Eve. July 27th 7.30pm

Out Of Here -  Sun Afternoon. July 28th 3.00pm 

The Cry Of Granuaile  - Sunday Eve July 28th 7.30pm

Saturday July 27th 7.30pm £8.00

“The Image You Missed”  73mins: Ireland /USA/France/ UK.  (2018).

“The Image You Missed” explores the complexities of a father/son relationship. Irish filmmaker, Donal Foreman,  grapples with the legacy of his estranged father, the late American documentarian Arthur MacCaig, through MacCaig's decades-spanning archive of the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Drawing on over 30 years of unique and never-seen-before imagery, ‘The Image You Missed’ is a documentary essay film that weaves together a history of the Northern Irish Troubles with the story of a son's search for his father. In the process, the film creates a candid encounter between two filmmakers born into different political moments, revealing their contrasting experiences of Irish nationalism, the role of images in social struggle, and the competing claims of personal and political responsibility.

Donal Foreman’s Father, Arthur MacCaig, made political documentaries, with a particular career-long focus on the conflicts in Northern Ireland and the Basque Country. Following his death in 2008, Dónal Foreman created this award-winning feature documentary, drawing on MacCaig's archive. 

‘The Image You Missed’ is Foreman's second feature, after his 2013 debut ‘Out of Here’. A Dublin-based drama the Irish Times described as "profound, humorous and touching",

His most recent award winning film “The Cry of Granuaile’ was released in 2022. 

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP26DVDpz9M[/embed]

Out Of Here -  Sun Afternoon. July 28th 3.00pm 

“Out Of Here” Directed by Donal Foreman: 80mins: (2013).

Made with a quiet authenticity that belies its nature as fiction, ‘Out of Here’ tells the story of a generation through its central figure of Ciaran (Fionn Walton) and his restlessness upon returning to Ireland after a year of travelling. A college dropout, Ciaran meets with friends scrambling to make a living as graduates in contemporary Ireland; his real interest, however, is in ex-girlfriend Ruth (Emma Eliza Regan) and his hope of restarting their relationship. Despite this desire to make his life in Dublin work, even the presence of new flame Melissa (Aoife Duffin) cannot prevent his home and its familiar banalities being difficult to bear. Director Donal Foreman’s first feature after a series of successful shorts, ‘Out of Here’ finds Foreman retaining his power to catch the small details which reveal the characters and their stories in this singular account of being young in Ireland.

‘Out Of Here’ was Foreman's debut feature, which the Irish Times described as "profound, humorous and touching".  He followed it with his award winning feature documentary ‘The Image You Missed” in which he grapples with the legacy of his estranged father, the late American documentarian Arthur MacCaig. His most recent award winning film “The Cry of Granuaile’ was released to huge acclaim in 2022. 

Sunday July 28th 7.30pm £8.00

“The Cry of Granuaile” - 82 mins: Ireland: 2022 

A grieving American filmmaker (Dale Dickey) and her Irish assistant (Judith Roddy) tour the west of Ireland, researching a film about Granuaile, the legendary 16th century rebel and ‘pirate queen’. The women develop an uneasy intimacy as they journey towards a remote Atlantic Island, where boundaries begin to blur between past and present, myth and history, dream and reality, presenting a wide-eyed American beguiled by Ireland. 

Filmed on granular 16mm with a swoony orchestral score, the film is playful but assured in its homage to an earlier cinema aesthetic while the film’s locations provide a majestic backdrop to the action. 

“The Cry of Granuaile’  is Foreman's third feature film following on from his debut film ‘Out of Here’ (2013) and his award winning Documentary Film “The Image You Missed”. 

The Cry of Granuaile is the first feature funded through the Irish Arts Council’s Authored Works initiative in which the Irish Film Institute are Exhibition Partners.

About The Filmmaker Dónal Foreman: 

Dónal Foreman (born Dublin, 1985) is an Irish filmmaker living between New York City and Dublin. He has been making films since he was 11 years old. Since then, he has written, directed, edited and co-produced three feature films and dozens of shorts (retrospectives of which have been curated by the Irish Film Institute and Cork Film Centre.

The Irish Times has called him “one of Ireland' most imaginative cinematic talents”, and his features have been praised in the Hollywood Reporter, Sight & Sound, the Guardian, Film Comment and Filmmaker Magazine.

At age 17, he won the title of Ireland's Young Filmmaker of the Year. He has been nominated twice for the Irish Film & TV Academy Awards - for the Rising Star Award in 2014 and for Best Documentary in 2020 - and presented with the Discovery Award from the Dublin Film Critics Circle in 2014. His second feature, The Image You Missed, premiered at Rotterdam and has gone on to screen at over 40 festivals across 20 countries including Edinburgh, CPH:DOX and the Viennale, winning nine awards including the Grand Jury Prize at BAFICI, and receiving theatrical releases in Ireland, the UK, the US, Greece and Mexico. The Irish Times recently declared it one of the 50 best Irish films ever made.