Drawing from our past
Oscar-nominated director Lenny Abrahamson has curated a playlist of his favourite films available online from the IFI Irish Film Archive. He spoke to Newstalk about how our cinematic past can help influence our filmmaking going forward.
A familiarity with the history of the medium you work in is a very rich kind of thing that you can draw on as a filmmaker.
The director, who has been at the helm of the films Adam and Paul (2004) , Garage (2007), What Richard Did (2012) and Room (2015, for which he received his best director Oscar nomination) has chosen a varied selection of films for his playlist.
Adam and Paul (2004)They include Patrick Carey’s Yeats Country (1965), a lyrical film which commemorates the centenary of the birth of W.B. Yeats; Desmond Egan’s In Wicklow Hills (1940s), which includes a family stroll through the Powerscourt gardens; Tudor Style (1979), a short documentary on the small privately-owned Tudor Cinema in Co. Down which screened American B movies and Clock Tower Animation, a stop-motion animation produced in Cork back in 1910.
Room (2015)
In Ireland, we tend to think of ourselves as primarily literary and filmmaking came late. But actually there's a really great tradition here.
It's been a brilliant thing for me to dive into this incredibly rich trove of material shot in this country.
The Irish Film Institute is the custodian of Ireland’s unique moving image heritage and the home of the national collection of moving image. The IFI Player which houses its online collection of over 600 videos can be accessed here: https://ifiplayer.ie/
Lenny Abrahamson's full playlist can be viewed here: Playlist
You can listen back to Lenny Abrahamson on The Pat Kenny Show below:
