This film screened 24th March 2016.

David Lean’s sumptuous Academy-Award-nominated film presents a tale of passion and small-town intrigue against a backdrop of the 1916 Rising in faraway Dublin. In the village of Kirrary, Co. Kerry, newly-wed Rosy (Sarah Miles) is dissatisfied with her marriage to mild-mannered schoolteacher Charles Shaughnessy (Robert Mitchum) and embarks on an affair with shell-shocked British soldier (Christopher Jones). When plans to land a shipment of German guns on a local beach fail, Rosy and her British lover fall under suspicion and tragedy ensues.

Offering a distinctly British perspective on Irish history, Lean’s epic should provoke interesting discussion about the veracity of its representations.

Screening as part of the IFI’s 1916 Appraising the Uprising commemorative season.