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Festival coverage

Docs Ireland

18 June – 23 June 2024

Opening with Alessandra Celesia's intimate Belfast-set story The Flats, this year's Docs Ireland explores a wide range of topics including feminism, colonialism, music and health. It includes a special In Conversation approach with Asif Kapadia, and a Solstice event celebrating the often overlooked contribution of women in traditional Irish music.

The festival runs from 18 to 23 June.

Other years (3)

Box office and information

Latest reviews

  • No Other Land
    Review preview for No Other Land

    No Other Land brings humanity and particularity to a topic that is too often discussed in the abstract.

    Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
    This film made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective shows the destruction of the West Bank’s Masafer Yatta by Israeli authorities and the unlikely alliance which develops between the Palestinian activist Basel and Israeli journalist Yuval.
  • Agent Of Happiness
    Review preview for Agent Of Happiness

    As the surveys continue, different ideas of happiness emerge along with moments of shared humanity.

    Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
    Amber is one of the many agents working for the Bhutanese government to measure people’s happiness levels among the remote Himalayan mountains. But will he find his own along the way?
  • The Alexander Complex
    Review preview for The Alexander Complex

    There’s a lot to keep track of in a narrative which keeps finding new sharks to jump and yet, somehow, keeps us believing.

    Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
    An international group of 'gentlemanly explorers', all with pseudonyms to protect their identities, come together in a quest to solve the mystery of the missing tomb of Alexander the Great.
  • Home Invasion
    Review preview for Home Invasion

    It strives to create an atmosphere of discomfort and paranoia. It achieves the former.

    Jennie Kermode · 2 out of 5
    A nightmarish essay film on the history of the doorbell, tracing its invention and constant reinventions through 19th century labour struggles, the nascent years of narrative cinema, and contemporary surveillance cultures.
  • Once Upon A Time In A Forest
    Review preview for Once Upon A Time In A Forest

    It’s a film which uses experimental techniques to explore its themes, delivering something more like poetry than linear storytelling.

    Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
    Biodiversity and generation gaps collide in a politically urgent and thoughtful film about two young activists' fight to save the vast Finnish forests.
  • I See A Darkness
    Review preview for I See A Darkness

    There is a willful experimentalism at the core of the film, an invitation to look and look again until the familiar becomes strange, until one notices something different.

    Jennie Kermode · 5 out of 5
    Shot in Paris, Death Valley, and the Nevada nuclear test site, this film essay examines the complex historical relationship between photography, cinema and science.
  • The Flats
    Review preview for The Flats

    The Flats gives voice to people who have lived most of their lives feeling silenced, but it’s all the little details it captures in passing that speak loudest.

    Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
    Joe and his Belfast neighbors reenact childhood memories from the violent Troubles era in their Catholic district, exploring the collective experiences that shaped their lives and community.
  • The Taste Of Mango
    Review preview for The Taste Of Mango

    The brutality of the abuse is never played down or shied away from, but nor is it considered insurmountable.

    Sunil Chauhan · 3.5 out of 5
    Three generations, spanning London to Sri Lanka, weave together in this documentary considering a history of abuse.
  • Homecoming
    Review preview for Homecoming

    This is a quiet and thoughtful film with slowly building power. It will leave you awed by the resilience of its subjects yet angry that they needed it.

    Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
    A personal story about the return of Sámi artefacts — long held in a museum — to their homeland.
  • Pina
    Review preview for Pina

    If you see one dance film in your life, see this one with those 3D glasses.

    Anne-Katrin Titze · 4 out of 5
    3D dance documentary.

A–Z of Docs Ireland 2024 reviews

Features

  • Light and shadow
    Katherine Waugh on science, philosophy and cinema in I See A Darkness
  • Life in New Lodge
    Alessandra Celesia on capturing the stories of The Flats
  • The land remembers
    Simon Aeppli on the folk horror landscape of 1970s Northern Ireland
  • All aboard
    Nicolas Philibert on the art of documentary, psychiatry and On The Adamant
  • Bringing the stories home
    Suvi West and Anssi Kömi on the repatriation of artefacts from museums and making Homecoming

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