This film screened on Saturday 13th June 2015.

We are delighted to welcome director Alan Gilsenan to this screening.

Celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of W.B. Yeats, the IFI and Yeats 2015 present Alan Gilsenan’s cinematic and avowedly experimental ‘film-poem’.

Using solely the words of Yeats, the film takes the viewer on a cinematic journey into his extraordinary imagination – an unconventional biography of sorts. Yet, beyond the poet’s popular profile and his cultural tourist caché, little is really known of his complex life, despite having articulated it so completely, so creatively.

In so many ways, Yeats dreamt up his life. He fashioned his own majestic screenplay and we are – endlessly – the beneficiaries. (Notes by Alan Gilsenan.)

Part of the Reel Art programme – an initiative of the Arts Council, Jameson Dublin International Film Festival and Filmbase.

See also: Archive at Lunchtime’s series of FREE programmes celebrating Yeats 2015.