Ireland On Sunday Presents Mahon Doc

IFI Ireland on Sunday is presenting the Dublin premiere of director Roger Greene's new documentary on Derek Mahon, the internationally acclaimed and multi-award winning poet on November 8 at 1pm.
The documentary follows Mahon as he retraces his steps as an only child growing up in Belfast, his secondary schooling in the Belfast Academical Institution (or Inst), his university experience in Trinity College, Dublin and his formative years as a poet.
The film's contributors and literary commentators include poets Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Frank Ormsby and Gerald Dawe; literary critics Terence Brown, Eve Patten and Hugh Haughton; author Patricia Craig and publisher Peter Fallon.
The film was produced and directed by Roger Greene for Carranna Productions and its Executive Producer was Donald Taylor Black.
Over the years, Derek Mahon avoided publicity, allowing his poetry to speak both for itself and himself.
Here, for the first time ever on film, Mahon breaks his media silence and speaks frankly about his life, his work, his past and his present.
The film explores the poetry of Mahon with its themes of displacement, identity, loss and exile and reveals that while the work is always serious in intent, irony and humour are never too far away. The selected poems included in the documentary are all read by Mahon.
The documentary was filmed over a three-month period in 2008/09 with locations in Belfast, London, Kinsale, Dublin and features extensive scenes in the Long Room (Old Library) in Trinity College. Locations also featured are the National Gallery of Ireland where Mahon explains the poetic inspiration he derives from the Dutch Masters and the Gate Theatre for which Mahon adapted several classical stage plays such as Cyrano de Bergerac and Phaedre.
IFI Ireland on Sunday is the IFI's monthly programme of screenings that showcase recent Irish filmmaking of all disciplines previous to theatrical release, broadcast or gallery exhibition.
Further information is available at: www.ifi.ie.
(KMcA/BMcc)