THE FUTURE TENSE Director: Christine Molloy & Joe Lawlor 89 mins, UK-Ireland, 2022, Digital Book cinema tickets Watch on Watch on IFI Home Having lived contentedly in England for over 30 years, but now reeling from recent seismic changes to the political landscape, two Dublin-born filmmakers and their London-born daughter are forced to consider a move back home, across the water, to Ireland. They reflect upon two urgent existential questions about their idea of home: do they have a future here in England?; and can they imagine returning to Ireland to live? Positioning themselves wryly at the centre of the documentary as authors/narrators/immigrants, the filmmakers explore identity through personal memoir (Joe’s parents emigrated to London in the late 1950s); political history (in the figure of 1970s radical Rose Dugdale); through the central role of the Famine in Irish memory; and through their daughter, Molly, a living embodiment of dual national identity. Such criss-crossing of narrative threads adds much to the energy, ideas, and brilliant dry humour that drive this film. Notes by Sunniva O’Flynn Director: Christine Molloy & Joe Lawlor 89 mins, UK-Ireland, 2022, Digital