Irish director Ross Whitaker’s short film ‘Home Turf’ is amongst three Irish documentary films set to screen at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, which got underway last night in Toronto and runs until May 6.
The 14-minute documentary short will receive its international premiere at the acclaimed documentary festival when it screens tomorrow night (April 28).
The short is one of three Irish Film Board-funded documentaries which will be shown at the festival in Toronto. The other two are writer and director Carol Morley’s ‘Dreams of a Life’, which will be screened on May 2 and May 4, and Sean McAllister's ‘The Reluctant Revolutionary’, which will be shown tonight (April 27) and on April 29 and May 6.
Directed by Whitaker (Bye Bye Now, The Bailout), ‘Home Turf’ was produced by Aideen O' Sullivan for True Films and celebrates the dying craft of turf-cutting. The film explores the battle between man and machine, the inevitability of progress and the rich benefits of old-fashioned community life. The documentary short was funded under the Irish Film Board’s Reality Bites scheme.
Morley’s ‘Dreams of a Life’ is about 38-year-old Joyce Vincent who after dying in her bedsit above a shopping mall in North London was undiscovered until three years later. Morley sets out to discover who Joyce Vincent was and how, in this so called age of communication, she came to be forgotten.
The documentary was produced by James Mitchell, Cairo Cannon and Rachel Lysaght for Soho Moon Pictures and recently had its US premiere at SXSW in Texas.
‘The Reluctant Revolutionary' had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in February and is an intimate portrait of Yemen as the revolution unfolds. The documentary is told through the eyes of tour guide leader Kais. It was produced by Rachel Lysaght and Elhum Shakerifar for Underground Films.
Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is North America's largest documentary festival and showcases more than 100 documentaries from around the world.
