During the winter of 1969, young boys started to disappear from the streets of Belfast, never to be seen again. By 1974, as the Troubles were reaching a bloody and vicious peak, five boys in total had vanished within a five-mile radius. Fifty years later, as the disappearances remain unsolved and families continue to search for answers, filmmaker Des Henderson (How to Defuse a Bomb) reopens these largely forgotten cold-cases, unearthing disturbing revelations in secret state documents to tell an extraordinary tale of abuse, trauma and potential cover-up.
Official selection Belfast International Film Festival and Irish Film Institute Documentary Festival 2023 - World premiere
A bleak, surreal silent short film that references Beckett’s ‘First Love’ monologue, isolation and ghosts. The film is loosely based on the story of Denis McCabe, a musician and employee of the Castle Caldwell Estate, Belleek and The Fiddler’s Stone - a tombstone made in his memory.
Never Mind Walnut Street is Marta Dyczkowska’s heartfelt letter to her dear friend, walking him through the changes in the city they once shared together.
Edinburgh International Film Festival 2023 Bridging the Gap - World premiere
In the aftermath of an emotionally abusive relationship, an unstable Joe seeks couples counselling with a sock puppet likeness of his ex-boyfriend, Malcolm.
A moving and heartfelt drama that follows Artie Crawford (Brosnan), a Northern Irish World War II veteran who has just lost his wife. On the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, Artie decides to secretly escape his care home and embarks on an arduous but inspirational journey to France, to pay his final respects to his best friend and find the courage to face the ghosts of his past.
An operation 10 years ago left Allister with damaged vocal cords and an obstacle to communication. His unusual solution reminds us that community thrives in surprising places.
Official Selection True/False Film Fest 2023
Official Selection Sheffield DocFest 2023
Official Selection IDFA 2023
STOLEN is the story of women who had the misfortune to fall pregnant ‘out of wedlock’ in an Ireland that heavily influenced by the Catholic Church. Over 80,000 unmarried mothers were incarcerated in institutions run by nuns from 1922 to 1998. Mothers and babies were cruelly separated shortly after birth with thousands of babies taken for adoption and their birth records rendered untraceable. 9,000 infants died from 1922 to 1998, a rate sometimes five times the national average. Others were fostered out as cheap farm labour from the age of six.
It was a history that was largely ignored until the discovery that 796 babies had died between 1925 and 1961 in the Tuam Mother and Baby Home alone. Evidence of tiny remains found in an underground sewage plant on the site of the former home caused outrage and alarm escalated over what happened in other institutions such as Bessborough in Cork and Sean Ross Abbey in Tipperary where more children died without burial records. The Irish government announced an investigation into Mother and Baby homes.
Survivors relate their experiences of cruelty and loss and of happier outcomes in some cases, interwoven with historical analysis and artists’ responses to what happened.
Official Selection London Irish Film Festival 2023 - World premiere
THE HOUSE is a 25 minute experience on a VR headset which uses a house as a metaphor for Northern Ireland and puts the player in role as a potential resident. The piece was created following a successful run in both West and East Belfast of a live experience through a domestic house.
THE HOUSE was created with the Commission for Victims and Survivors, using their research into post conflict inter-generational trauma, 25 years on from the GFA.
A film about the handful of streets around the Cowgate, Edinburgh, which have long housed a proud Irish diaspora. A film about folk music and its power to connect people.
Musician Aidan O’Rourke, from the celebrated folk trio Lau, lives in the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town. During lockdown, Aidan got to know three of his octogenarian neighbours, all called Margaret, and listened to their stories. Aidan brings together a group of sensational Irish and Scottish folk musicians and explores through music and storytelling what home and belonging mean.
Featuring a stunning original soundtrack by O’Rourke and live performances by Liam Ó Maonlai, Brìghde Chaimbeul, Comac Begley, Róisín Chambers and Aoife Ní Bhriain.
Aidan O’Rourke is a fiddler and composer. Raised in Argyll, his roots are Scottish and Irish but his music roams the edges of those traditions.
Becky Manson is a filmmaker from Orkney. Interested in routine, repetition, and ritual, she tells small stories that speak to universal themes.
Mark Cousins has directed twenty feature films. His themes are cinema, cities, recovery, walking and looking. Among many he has won the Prix Italia, the Stanley Kubrick award, the EFA's Innovation award, a Peabody.
An emotive, intimate film portrait of the life and death of Northern Irish journalist Lyra McKee, who was murdered by dissident Republicans the day before Good Friday, April 2019. Directed by her close friend, documentarian Alison Millar, the film seeks answers to her senseless killing through Lyra’s own work and words. In just 29 years, she rose from working-class roots in the epicentre of war torn Belfast to become an internationally renowned investigative journalist, seeking justice for crimes that had been forgotten amid the euphoria surrounding the 1998 Good Friday Peace agreement. As the voice of her ceasefire generation, Lyra represented hope for a future free of conflict. Her death is another tragic milestone for a country trying to shake off the shackles of its violent past.
Official Selection Sheffield DocFest 2022 - Rebellions - UK premiere
A hawk, a chicken, a rat, a tree, a departed father, his struggling daughter and her distant child who has recently returned home. Within each body lies the reflections of all others.
![The House [VR]](/storage/project/images/films/2023/02/HOUSE.jpg)
