Directed by Edward Bennett • Drama • With Julie Covington, Ian Charleson • 1982 • 92 minutes
Set in Ireland in 1920, Ascendancy is a powerful meditation on English guilt over the tormented history of Northern Ireland. Connie (Julie Covington) is an English aristocrat driven to despair over the horrors of war, including both the residual effects of the Great War and a new wave of violence emerging on the streets of Ulster.
Produced in 1982 by the BFI and Channel 4, Ascendancy reflects the political climate of the time, when the British government’s strategy for dealing with Northern Ireland was often openly questioned. Here, Connie’s eventual refusal to eat is clearly a reference to the hunger strikes and protests then occurring in British jails. Edward Bennett’s forceful and intelligent film won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, but has since been difficult to see - it is now ripe for reappraisal.
Directed by Pat Murphy & John Davies • Drama • With Mary Jackson • 1981 • 90 minutes
Pat Murphy and John Davis’ experimental film attempts to posit an alternative, feminist perspective on the Troubles and Irish nationalism. Flitting between the various pasts and present, it follows the exper...
Directed by Peter Lennon • Documentary • With Seán Ó Faoláin, Conor Cruise O’Brien, John Houston • 1967 • 67 minutes
ROCKY ROAD TO DUBLIN is a provocative and revealing portrait of Ireland in the Sixties, a society characterized by a stultifying educational system, a morally repressive and polit...
Directed by Paul Duane • Documentary • With Peter Lennon, Raoul Coutard • 2005 • 27 minutes
This documentary reunites director Peter Lennon and cinematographer Raoul Coutard, who recount the making of their then controversial but now classic documentary on Ireland in the Sixties. Rocky Road to D...
