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Director
Desmond Bell
Credits
Producer: Sylvia Stevens
Category
DocumentaryIrish Language
Developed from the autobiography of Michael MacGowan, an emigrant labourer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Hard Road to Klondike is the retelling of a life of punishing work done at the limits of survival. Voiceovers drawn from the autobiography describe how MacGowan left home at fifteen, to Scotland and later America, in search of his fortune. Without footage of MacGowan’s own life, Hard Road instead creatively employs fiction films and relevant archival footage of workers, railroads and the like to illustrate a narrative which sees MacGowan sympathising with North America’s crumbling Indian society before setting his eyes on Klondike and the gold buried beneath its snow-capped hills. With MacGowan moving from rural farming to industrial mines this documentary provides a stirring reminder of the difficulties experienced by Irish labourers as they exchanged poverty at home for poverty abroad in the punishment attempt to make something of themselves.
55 minutes, Producer: Sylvia Stevens , 1999, Colour/B&W
ANORA 15:30
BIRD 11:10
FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL – IFI FAMILY: SAUVAGES 11.00
FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: AGATHA AND THE LIMITLESS READINGS 14.10
FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: BEING MARIA 15.10
FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: JIM’S STORY 17.30
FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: MARCELLO MIO 19.50
FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: SCÉNARIOS + EXPOSÉ DU FILM ANNONCE DU FILM ‘SCÉNARIO’ 12.10
FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: SOULEYMANE’S STORY 13.00
HOUSEWIFE OF THE YEAR 13:40, 18:20
SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE 16:20, 18:30
SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D’ETAT 20:10
THE ROOM NEXT DOOR 20:40
The IFI is supported by The Arts Council