Irish Film Institute -Due to phenomenal demand, Alan Gilsenan’s documentary Meetings With Ivor opens at the Irish Film Institute on Friday, February 10th

Due to phenomenal demand, Alan Gilsenan’s documentary Meetings With Ivor opens at the Irish Film Institute on Friday, February 10th

January 24th 2017: Following three sell-out screenings as part of a collaboration with mental health arts festival First Fortnight, Meetings with Ivor will open at the Irish Film Institute from Friday, February 10th. The IFI are delighted to welcome back director Alan Gilsenan and Ivor Browne for a sold-out opening night screening and Q&A.

Produced by Tomás Hardiman, Parzival Productions, and funded through the Sound and Vision Scheme of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, Meetings with Ivor is a documentary on the life and work of ground-breaking psychiatrist Ivor Browne. Browne has been a central figure in Irish mental health for many decades. His pioneering and often controversial work on behalf of the many who cannot speak for themselves is well-known.

Alan Gilsenan’s new film captures the essence of this extraordinary man. In a quirky and challenging cinematic portrait we meet Browne, now in his late-eighties, who is still full of energy, good humour and compassion, and who remains a deeply-informed, startlingly innovative thinker. His unique attributes continue to find vital expression and offer real hope in an increasingly bewildering world. The film contains contributions from a host of familiar faces including Tommy Tiernan, Tom Murphy, Mary Coughlan, Sebastian Barry, and Nell McCafferty.

Tickets for the Q&A on the evening of February 10th have sold out. Tickets are now on sale for two additional screenings (without Q+As) on February 10th at 13.15 and February 11th at 18.00. Showing times and tickets for all other screenings will be available on Monday, February 6th from www.ifi.ie or by calling the IFI Box Office on 01-6793477.

 

Meetings with Ivor was previously screened as The Wonder Eye.

 

For more information and interview availability please contact Michelle McDonagh at the IFI Press Office on 01-6795744 or mmcdonagh@irishfilm.ie.

 

IFI is principally funded by the Arts Council.

ENDS

NOTES FOR EDITORS

ABOUT THE IFI

The Irish Film Institute is Ireland’s national cultural institution for film. It provides audiences throughout Ireland with access to the finest independent, Irish and international cinema. It preserves and promotes Ireland’s moving image heritage through the IFI Irish Film Archive, and provides opportunities for audiences of all ages and backgrounds to learn and critically engage with film.

ABOUT IVOR BROWNE

Born in Dublin, after his initial studies at the Royal College of surgeons, Ivor Browne worked in Oxford, London, Harvard and Dublin and went on to become Professor of Psychiatry at University College, Dublin and Chief Psychiatrist of the Eastern Health Board. His opposition to orthodox psychiatry made him a vital and controversial figure in Irish public life up until his retirement in the mid-90s. He conceived and was director of the Irish Foundation for Human Development. This set up the first Community Association in Ireland in Ballyfermot, one of the early large housing estates in Dublin.

ABOUT ALAN GILSENAN

Alan Gilsenan is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and theatre director. He was born in County Meath, graduated with a First Class Honours in Modern English and Sociology from Trinity College Dublin, and established himself as one of Ireland’s iconoclastic film directors with The Road to God Knows Where (1988). Working from his own company “Yellow Asylum Films,” he has directed over thirty films and documentaries for cinema and TV that have been seen in international releases, festival screenings and national broadcasts, including: The Green Fields of France (1998), All Souls’ Day (1998), Zulu 9 (2001), The Ghost of Roger Casement (2002), Timbuktu (2004) The Yellow Bittern (2009), Ó Pheann An Phiarsaigh (2011), Eliza Lynch: Queen of Paraguay (2013) and A Vision: A Life of W. B. Yeats (2014). Winning Jacobs, IFTA and European Film Awards, he has also served as Chair of the Irish Film Institute, and as a member of the Irish Film Board and the Board of RTÉ.

IFI CINEMAS TODAY


The IFI is supported
by The Arts Council

Arts Council of Ireland