With a film and theatre career spanning almost forty years, Alan Gilsenan is one of Ireland’s most prolific and revered directors of drama and documentary film. The selection of films presented here provides an introduction to the work (much of which was made with his longtime producer Martin Mahon, through their company Yellow Asylum Films). Gilsenan’s documentary mode, which ranges from robust investigation to essayistic reverie to sensitive observation, is distinguished by intellectual rigour and creative innovation, allied to a seemingly unquenchable curiosity about history, literature, culture and society – both in Ireland but also in the wider world. His highly eclectic oeuvre of over 40 films for cinema and television also provides an invaluable compendium of reflection on Irish minds and Irish matters over four decades.
This selection includes historical documentary, literary-infused memoir and a loose trilogy of documentaries, produced by Tomás Hardiman, which explore the experience of people who have suffered psychological trauma in the past and their attempts to find healing.
