Preceded by short:An Bonnán Buí (Padraig O'Neill, Edith Pieperhoff, Ireland, 1995). Set in Connemara, this animated film is a lament to Bonnán Buí (the Yellow Bittern), a bird that died for want of drink. (10 mins, Color, 35mm, From Irish Film Archive, permission of the artist) (Poteen). Poitín was partially conceived as a response to The Quiet Man, also set in the coastal area of Connemara, and its sentimental portrayal of the Irish landscape. Poitín tells of a small community centered on a home-distiller of Irish moonshine whiskey, or poteen. In Gaelic dialogue, using local actors (with Cyril Cusak as the moonshiner), it shifts between a humorous, whimsical account of two men's bumbling attempts at theft and a harsh series of revenges. Director Bob Quinn, a strong advocate of Gaelic culture, has called it "a horror story told amusingly." Irish film critic Ciaran Carty suggests that Quinn "implicitly deromanticizes the Robert Flaherty image of the rugged West as a place of primal dignity where man does noble battle with the elements." (KG)