Introduction by Gerard Byrne
Screened with The Making of Rocky Road to Dublin

Made by Guardian journalist Peter Lennon and French New Wave cinematographer Raoul Coutard, this is the most important independent documentary made in Ireland in the 1960s. As Lennon comments, the film is ‘an attempt to reconstruct, in images, the plight of a community which survived nearly 700 years of English occupation and then nearly sank under the weight of its own heroes and clergy.’ Rocky Road was one of the last films shown at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival, which was shut down by Godard and Truffaut in solidarity with striking workers and students.