Law on Film: Small Things Like These (2024)
Seán Patrick Donlan (Thompson Rivers University)

See open.spotify.com/episode/6T97...

See my more considered remarks in 'Essay: Screening for Help - Irish Care and Confinement' (21 November 2025, Film Ireland) at
www.filmireland.net/essay-screen...

Producer Nathalie Lichtenthaeler on the Co-development of Once Upon a Time in a Cinema | Creative Europe Desk Ireland Interview with producer Nathalie Lichtenthaeler from Wide Eye Films on the Irish / German co-development of Once Upon a Time in a Cinema which was supported by MEDIA's European Co-development...

Once Upon a Time in a Cinema is 'a feature drama, shot in Limerick [in the former Royal Cinema], that explores community, courage, and resilience during crisis inspired by writer-director David Gleeson’s childhood memories of growing up in rural Ireland.'
www.creativeeuropeireland.eu/news-events/...

RTÉ Cult TV Classics: When Bachelors Walk met Celtic Tiger Dublin Airing on Network 2 from 2001–2003 (with a Christmas special in 2006), Bachelors Walk became one of RTÉ's biggest wins of the early 2000s...

“Hey, remember affordable housing? Smoking in pubs? A world pre-smartphone, pre-recession, pre-The 2 Johnnies?”

For RTÉ, here’s me on the many joys of BACHELORS WALK

www.rte.ie/culture/2026...

Ireland’s Populists Wage War on Reality While the World Burns Iran has Shiites, Ireland has Gobshiites!

'You’d think it was a kind of genius, this talent for turning global cataclysm into personal grievance. But it’s not cleverness; it’s cowardice dressed in the populist costumes of Trump, Orban, and Farage.'
open.substack.com/pub/tull/p/i...

Favourite Canadian Films 🍁 Defining what makes a film 'Canadian' - some combination of direction, writing, acting, setting, etc - might be a fool's errand. For my purposes, for now, I’ve reluctantly included the work of Canadia...

It's National Canadian Film Day (canfilmday.ca/)!

Since 2014, it's a celebration of Canadian film, with free screenings in cinemas across Canada and abroad, with many more viewers at home.

Tonight I'll celebrate for the first time as a citizen. Here are some personal favourites ...
boxd.it/mtnLm

The Religious Extremists Trying to Destroy Western Civilisation… There is a death cult running America, one that claims to believe in eternal life. I remember laughing as Donald Trump, on his first go round, claiming the Bible was his favourite book, so much his favourite in fact, that he couldn’t pick out a single verse for discission. ‘The Bible means a lot to me,’ he said, with a presumably full heart, ‘but I don’t want to get into specifics.’ Back then, in the now Edenic early days of …

'There is a death cult running America, one that claims to believe in eternal life.'
sluggerotoole.com/2026/04/11/t...

'Round Midnight (1986) - Thursday, 30 April 2026
Kamloops Film Society (for #internationaljazzday)

The best jazz film ever made. And much more.
My favourite film of all time (for four decades). Pass it on.

See details at thekfs.ca/movie/round-...

On the latest Hurtin For Real... Your Western Swing Favourites. We'll catch @bismeaux.bsky.social #BobWills #BrennenLeigh #TheWesternSwingAuthority #JoshuaHedley + a whole lot more. Drop by any time at hurtinforreal.com ... And thanks to all who suggested a song. Appreciate it! 🎻🎻

It was a very good month.

Looking forward to this!

I blame Roy Keane. And Éanna Hardwicke.

Brian, a belated thanks for this.

I hope I didn't too much of an a** of myself and that my references to Ciara (@ciaramoloney.bsky.social, on The Quiet Man) and Luke (@mistercinecal.bsky.social, on The Banshees of Inisherin), in particular, were in order.

Like Headstuff, they both do great work.

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.

Visit our website to learn more and book tickets ➡️ https://ifi.ie/alan-gilsenan/

The Musical Republic of Western Canada - a little jack film YouTube video by little jack films

Lovingly shot across the Canadian Plains and inspired by the classic Heartworn Highways (1976), this documentary of Canadian artists (Colter Wall, Corb Lund, William Prince, Zachary Lucky, and more) is highly recommended. It's solid throughout. Sometimes it soars.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVP_...

Recommended. One of my favourite Irish films from last year (seen at the 2025 Galway Film Fleadh).

I promise to remain a good neighbour.

Best wishes to you and yours.

As of today, we're officially Canadian. Not sorry.

'Set on a large island off the eastern coast of Ireland in the 1920s, the film stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as two lifelong friends at an impasse when one reluctantly ends their imperial adventures, with severe consequences for both of them. Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan co-star.'

Jason Isbell Explains How Music Is Like The News But For Sounds. Subscribe to The Onion at membership.theonion.com/

When you’re finished drinking your weight in overpriced stout, pick a movie from Seán’s list of 25 Irish films to watch this St Patrick’s Day ☘️ including recent marvels ‘That They May Face the Rising Sun’ and Brendan Canty’s IFTA-winning debut, ‘Christy’.

Q: What is Sinners about? A: America’s inability to discuss its complex racial history without bringing the Irish into things.

What To Know About ‘Sinners’ https://theonion.com/what-to-know-about-sinners/

The Quiet and The Dead | 25 Films for St Patrick’s Day - HeadStuff Seán Patrick Donlan shares his recommendations of 25 Films for St Patrick’s Day along with his selection criteria of what makes a film Irish.

‘[T]he decision to watch films that project stereotypes of Ireland is … a missed opportunity …./The list that follows ... isn’t a collection of the best or essential Irish films … but a representative sampling of modern Irish cinema.’
headstuff.org/entertainmen...

The Onion Film Standard: Oscars 2026

'As with every year, we gave one award for each of the eight major Oscars: we care about most of the others (except for the fake awards like Best Original Song) but this post would be absurdly long if we picked those too.'

'Whatever the facts are, it is difficult not to feel that the directors have been incredibly negligent in their creative pursuits. Their film does little justice to the victim of a grisly murder. And it does little credit to Sheridan’s legacy.' Me.
See www.estudiosirlandeses.org/reviews/re-c...

Estudios Irlandeses is online and largely in English. It includes essential annual reviews on 'Irish Film, Television, and Theatre' and 'Irish Film and Media Studies Publications'. Each contains an editor's overview and individual film and book reviews.
See www.estudiosirlandeses.org/issue/issue-...

Elon Musk is wrong about empathy — and Irish film proves it Maybe instead of bringing shamrocks to the White House this year, our Taoiseach should be sharing our stories as a colonised people, writes Amy-Joyce Hastings

"The value of storytelling is that it helps us make meaning of the human experience. You walk a mile in the protagonist’s shoes & no matter how different your own shoes may be, that experience creates empathy."

Amy-Joyce Hastings on the power of cinema.

www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/comm...

On the scene of Dublin's film clubs. Words by Luke Dunne. Read at filmindublin.ie. Text over image of crowd in movie theatre

Support your local film club 🎥

On Dublin's flourishing film club scene: filmindublin.ie/2026/03/10/o...