Documentary in a Changing State: Ireland since the 1990s

Notes on Contributors

PROF. DESMOND BELL is currently Professor of Film Studies at Queen’s University Belfast. Over the last ten years he has written and directed a series of documentary films for television and the cinema, among which his awardwinning Hard Road to Klondike (1999) and The Last Storyteller? (2002) were selected for the Venice Film Festival. His recent documentaries include Rebel Frontier (2004) and Child of the Dead (2009). DR PAT BRERETON is currently Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science at Dublin City University. His books include Hollywood Utopia: Ecology in contemporary American cinema (Intellect Books, 2005), Continuum Guide to Media Education (Continuum, 2001) and the Historical Dictionary of Irish Cinema (Scarecrow Press, 2007) with Roddy Flynn. ALAN GILSENAN is a film-maker, writer and theatre director. His films include The Road To God Knows Where (1988), Prophet Songs (1990), All Souls’ Day (1997), Zulu 9 (2001), Paul Durcan: The dark school (2007), Maura’s Story (2002), The Ghost of Roger Casement (2002), Timbuktu (2004), The Yellow Bittern: The life and times of Liam Clancy (2009) as well as the documentary series The Asylum (2006), The Hospice (2007) and I See A Darkness (2010). For the theatre, he has directed his own adaptation of John Banville’s The Book of Evidence at the Kilkenny Festival and the Gate; Tom Murphy’s The Patriot Game, On The Outside and On The Inside as well as Tom MacIntyre’s What Happened Bridget Cleary at the Abbey; Jean Genet’s The Balcony and Tennessee Williams’ Small Craft Warnings at the Focus; Samuel Beckett’s Footfalls at the Gate and the Barbican; and Knives In Hens by David Harrower for Landmark Productions. DR ALAN GROSSMAN is a lecturer in Ethnographic Media Production in the Centre for Transcultural Research and Media Practice, Dublin Institute of Technology. He has published in numerous journals including Space and Culture and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and is co-editor with Áine O’Brien of a book/DVD-ROM publication titled Projecting Migration: Transcultural Documentary Practice (Wallflower Press, 2007). His co-directed ethnographic films, Silent Song (2000), Here To Stay (2006) and Promise and xiii Notes on Contributors Unrest (2010), have been screened nationally and internationally, and he is currently guest co-editing a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Media Practice 9, 2 (2011). MÁIRE KEARNEY is a producer/director with RTÉ. She started her career with RTÉ’s current affairs department in 1992. She subsequently worked for the BBC, TV3 and in the independent sector before returning to RTÉ current affairs in 2004. She won Irish Film & Television Awards (IFTAs) for Best Current Affairs for two of her Prime Time Investigates programmes – Home Truths in 2005 and Not Seen, Not Heard in 2007. LOUIS LENTIN is executive producer/director with Crescendo Concepts, a leading independent production company, for whom his numerous television documentaries include Dear Daughter (1996), Stolen Lives (1999), No More Blooms (1997), Ar Dover Féin (2001); the drama series Scealta Ó Theach na mBocht and the food and hospitality series McKenna’s Ireland. Previously as Head of Drama at RTÉ he produced and directed many notable dramas including Eugene McCabe’s King of the Castle (1977) and Maeve Binchy’s Deeply Regretted By (1978), along with the 1916 commemoration series Insurrection. His recent documentary Grandpa Speak to Me in Russian (2007) has been shown at film festivals worldwide. He is currently working with author Eugene McCabe on a feature film, Heaven Lies About Us, based on McCabe’s short story of the same title. RACHEL LYSAGHT is Lead Producer at Underground Films, and a graduate of EAVE and the Samuel Beckett School of Drama, Trinity College Dublin. Her titles include Identities (2008), Joyriders (2006), Muide Éire, Jericho (2009) and Hum (2010). Rachel has won many national and international awards – Sapporo International Film Festival, Japan; Festival de Lyon-Villeurbanne, France; Best Documentary Film, Irish Film & Television Awards; Best First Irish Short, Galway Film Fleadh; Gradam Gael Linn, Cork Film Festival. Recently, Jericho and Hum was nominated for the Berlin Today Awards, Berlinale 2010. The Pipe (2010), which Rachel produced, scooped Best Documentary Film awards at the IFTAs, Galway Film Fleadh and Foyle Film Festival, and an Honourable Mention from the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) jury in 2010 and 2011. RUTH LYSAGHT teaches Media Studies and Irish Cinema at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale, France...