CinÉireann March 2018 | Page 45

Was there a worry being so close to the subject that you couldn't separate art and artist?

No, not really. I was never striving for objectivity in my treatment of either him or his work. I think what I was actually worried about wasn’t separating but, again, bringing together. That is, wouId I be able to successfully weave together these disparate elements—some of which at first glance, might not even seem like they belong in the same film?

Along these lines, perhaps my greatest concern was that, in tackling my own personal (non-)relationship with my father alongside the Northern Ireland conflict, I didn’t want to either trivialize the politics or overly dramatize the personal story. Trying to get that balance right was very, very hard.

The voiceovers are a very interesting idea. Many letters to people now gone do not have a respondent, but this film includes Ernest Larsen as the voice of your father. Can you talk about why you decided to do that?

I knew from early on I wanted to include some of the letters Art had written to my mother, Maeve, and later on I expanded that to include excerpts from his writing and interviews that reflected more of his ideas about filmmaking and politics. It was important to me that he would have a voice in the film.

Ernest Larsen, along with his partner Sherry Millner, are a pair of brilliant anarchist critics, artists and filmmakers who have been getting up to no-good in New York since the ‘60s. They’re sort of my surrogate parents in New York, and I workshopped several cuts of the film with them. Getting Ernie to do my father’s voice felt like a natural extension of the contribution they were already making to the film.

But strangely it was actually my voice and narration that was a much later addition to the film. I really avoided it for a long time, I think because I was so wary of making the film feel overly self-involved. I wrote one version with a third person narrator and another with a dialogue between two fictional characters. In the end, speaking in my own voice and directly addressing my father seemed like the most honest, direct approach. By that point, however, his voice was already alive and present in the film, so in a way, I was the one responding to him…

How did you get involved with Philippe Grandrieux and Nicole Brenez for “It May Be That Beauty Has Strengthened Our Resolve”?

I met Nicole around six years ago when I interviewed her for the Brooklyn Rail. She’s been one of my favourite film critics since I was in film school; she writes with a combination of rigorous intellect and infectious enthusiasm that is almost unparalleled. Since we met, she’s been very encouraging of my work and I sent her some of my first notes on this project. In fact, in 2013, at Nicole’s suggestion, I wrote an essay about my father’s films for an issue of the film journal La Furia Umana that she was guest editing, and that ended up being a way of testing out some of the film’s ideas.

When I applied to the Arts Council for funding for the project, Nicole came on board as an advisor and, after seeing a rough cut, she offered to include the film in the series of films about political filmmakers that she has been producing with the great filmmaker Philippe Grandrieux. They’ve both been such inspirations to me that I really still can barely believe that I know them, let alone have their support on this film.

The film got a great reception in Rotterdam. What was that like, and how important are the big documentary film festivals for filmmakers?

Rotterdam was great! They really show a wide variety of work, not just documentary; everything from video installations and virtual reality to feature-length narratives. I’ve admired their programming selections from afar for many years, so being selected was a real delight. It was my first time showing a film at a festival of that scale, so it was both fun and very overwhelming.

Living abroad as you do, how do you view the Irish film industry?

I am a little isolated from it in New York, so I can’t say I have my finger on the pulse. But I think there’s some really good work being made – I’m particularly heartened to see how much Irish experimental film has carved out a space for itself in the last few years, something exemplified by Rouzbeh Rashidi and the group of filmmakers involved in his Experimental Film Society. And it’s wonderful that the Arts Council is really backing that kind of risk-taking cinema.

In the film industry more generally, I do feel a little too much emphasis gets put on Oscar nominations and A-list festival premieres, and all of the back-patting that goes along with that. There’s a certain self-consciousness about holding our own on the international stage that I think is ultimately short-sighted. Instead, I would argue the most important thing is that interesting filmmakers are supported in taking risks and building bodies of work, even if that work isn’t immediately showered with international plaudits.

CinÉireann / March 2018 45