Presented in Association with the Institute of Celtic Studies, Oakland
With the exception of films made by outsiders - such films as John Ford's The Quiet Man and The Informer, Carol Reed's Odd Man Out and Joseph Strick's versions of Joyce's books - Ireland has remained a country with virtually no film industry. In 1968, Dublin-born Kieran Hickey directed the first two fictional films to emerge from modern Ireland. Hickey, who claims to be Ireland's film fanatic in residence, began his career making informational films, and went on to direct three films on literary subjects: Faithful Departed, which depicts the Dublin of James Joyce's “Ulysses”; Jonathan Swift, a critical biography; and the story of the 19th-century Irish dramatist, Dion Boucicault. He now works primarily through his own production company, B.A.C. Films.
In his two recent fictional films, Exposure and A Child's Voice, Hickey demonstrates the Irish flair for story-telling, but in both films, though they differ very much in subject matter, his narrative style is spare, economical and understated, but the capturing of mood and nuance is precise and powerful.
