Pat Collins
2021
Abbas Kiarostami: The Art of Living
Fergus Daly, Pat Collins
Abbas Kiarostami, Mohammad Atebbai
Through an interview with Kiarostami in the Aran Islands and interviews with film critics and scholars at Cannes, the director examines Kiarostami's themes and methods. The director also profiles Kiarostami as a poet and a photographer.
Abbas Kiarostami: The Art of Living
1916: The Irish Rebellion
Pat Collins, Ruan Magan
Liam Neeson
The documentary - featuring a combination of rarely seen archival footage, new segments filmed on location worldwide, and interviews with leading international experts - also uncovers the untold story of the central role Irish-Americans played in the lead-up to the rebellion. Although defeated militarily, the men and women of the Easter Rising would wring a moral victory from the jaws of defeat and inspire countless freedom struggles throughout the world - from Ireland to India.
1916: The Irish Rebellion
Silence
Pat Collins
Eoghan Mac Giolla Bhride
Eoghan is a sound-recordist who is returning to Ireland from Berlin for the first time in 15 years. His reason for returning is a job offer: to find and record places free from man-made sound. His quest takes him away from towns and villages into remote terrain. Throughout his journey, he is drawn into a series of encounters and conversations which gradually divert his attention towards a more intangible silence, one that is bound up with the sounds of the life he had left behind. Influenced by elements of folklore and archive, “Silence” unfolds with a quiet intensity, where poetic images reveal an absorbing meditation on themes relating to sound and silence, history, memory and exile.
Silence
Oileán Thoraí
Pat Collins
Tory Island, nine miles off the coast of Donegal is the most remote inhabited island off Ireland. Its notorious inaccessibility and unforgiving landscape has not deterred 150 people from making this island their home. Oileán Thoraí captures, over the course of eighteen months, the changing patterns of life on Tory. It’s an intimate portrayal, exploring the lives of the islanders, their character and community.
Oileán Thoraí
Song of Granite
Pat Collins
Macdara Ó Fátharta, Mícheál Ó Confhaola
The life story of traditional Irish folk singer Joe Heaney, who is estimated to have recorded in excess of 500 traditional Irish sean nós ('old style') songs. Heaney moved from Ireland to the UK, and then on to New York City, where he settled shortly after performing at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.
Song of Granite
John McGahern: A Private World
Pat Collins
On March 30th 2006, after a life-time of dedication to his art, John McGahern, one of Ireland's most distinguished writers, sadly passed away after a long illness. Since the publication of his first book in 1963, John McGahern was at the cultural heart of Irish life. He was in the happy position of being universally praised by the critics and equally loved by the reading public. John McGahern: A Private World was filmed in 2004 just prior to the publication of his memoirs and these memoirs form the backbone of the documentary. Through intimate interviews, a strong and compelling sense of the man emerges, offering a rare insight into the creative process.
John McGahern: A Private World
Pilgrim
Pat Collins
Each year on the last Sunday of July one of the oldest pilgrimages in Ireland takes place. Pilgrims come from the surrounding countryside to ascend the 2,510 feet of Croagh Patrick. It has been traditional for certain people to climb the mountain at night and this is where the film begins.
Pilgrim
Michael Hartnett - A Necklace of Wrens
Pat Collins
Filmed the year before his death, Necklace of Wrens is a documentary profile on the life of one of Ireland’s leading poets, Michael Hartnett. The documentary includes contributions from poets Seamus Heaney, Paul Durcan and Liam O Muirthile, artist Graham Knuttle and musician Sean Tyrell.
Michael Hartnett - A Necklace of Wrens
Living in a Coded Land
Pat Collins
'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.
Living in a Coded Land
What We Leave in Our Wake.
Pat Collins
What We Leave in Our Wake is a filmic essay which unfolds as a series of conversations on Ireland, exploring themes such as emigration, mythology, consumerism, socialism, the place of the church in Irish life, the central role of land in Irish history and the sense of a civic society. Combining images of contemporary Ireland with an evocative blend of archive, What We Leave in Our Wake questions what persists rather than the temporary fluctuations and trends, and talks to some of those uniquely placed to comment on how this country has evolved.
What We Leave in Our Wake.
William McKeown: Idir Neamh agus Talamh
Pat Collins
‘William McKeown: Idir Neamh agus Talamh’ is a meditation on the work of Irish artist William McKeown (1962-2011), who developed a body of work that has had a radical and fundamental effect on our understanding of the age-old relationship of art to nature, steering our attention not to the distant sky but to the air around us, to the openness of nature, the feeling of our emergence into light and our proximity to the infinite.
William McKeown: Between Heaven and Earth