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Film Club Antics

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A light-hearted look at an amateur film production.  A film crew acts out a pre-production meeting for a film they declare could be ‘a fundamental experience in existential cinematography’.  Filmed on the Magee Campus of Ulster University the crew, which includes sound, camera and lighting technicians, record three actors (Carmel McCallion, Gerry Downey & Gordon […]

A City Solitary

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Opening with a quote from Lamentations ‘How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people’ and the melody of Londonderry Air (more recognisable to many as the tune of Danny Boy), this expository documentary is an early collaboration between Terence McDonald and John Hume, based on Hume’s research towards his 1964 thesis on the city of Derry (later published as Derry Beyond the Walls, 2002). By focusing on Derry’s economic and social history, the […]

Long Hard Road

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With opening and closing remarks from John Hume, Long Hard Road is a promotional film designed to appeal to American benefactors, highlighting the social improvement projects that have been aided by funds channeled from the Northern Ireland Resurgence Trust. Hume advocates that the real wealth of Northern Ireland is in its own people and that the people must harness their talents to lift themselves up.  Projects which have secured funding include building […]

The Portable Theatre

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An appealing portrait of the McCormick players, one of the last travelling theatre groups in Ireland in the late 1960s.  Terence McDonald captures their variety show of songs, sketches and puppetry, along with interviews with the family members, most of whom were born into the business and have been on stage from as young as three years […]

The City of Londonderry

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Where McDonald and Hume’s Two Hours From London is aimed at encouraging tourism to the region, The City of Londonderry promotes the Derry of the late 1960s as a centre of industrial development and economic potential. The city’s origins, surroundings, transport links, population demographics, technical education and leisure facilities are set out as important reasons for the expansion […]

The Open Door

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The Open Door is a public information film from the 1960s encouraging the use of mental health services in the region of Derry. It is empathetically told from the point of view of a fictional character, burdened with the stresses of modern life, who checks himself into the Gransha Psychiatric Hospital, and emerges after six weeks […]

The Option

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Hear the views of the men behind the cloth in this humanising short documentary examining the changing role of the Roman Catholic priest in 1970s Ireland.   In a range of interviews with clerics such as Father, later Bishop, Edward Daly and lay-people topics of celibacy, women, charity and social class are discussed. They reflect on what drew them to the […]

The Parish Centre

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Fr Michael Collins guides Terence McDonald through the many activities of the rural parish of Iskaheen/Muff, County Donegal, and the progressive social changes in evidence there.  The local Catholic Church has developed initiatives to become more engaged with its congregation in recent years. Children attend school where they are encouraged to use craft, music and drama to enhance […]

Two Hours From London

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Producers Terence McDonald and John Hume highlight the sights and sounds of Derry in this picturesque travelogue, aimed specifically at air travellers flying from London. Starting in the city, the camera takes in the Georgian architecture and famous city walls, still standing after three sieges. Rural tranquillity can be found a stone’s throw away and […]

Benburb

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‘If there is one thing history teaches, it is that history teaches nothing, man’s nature has changed little through the centuries. Despite progress, people find it more difficult today to live in peace than they did in the past. Each generation has to learn this lesson for itself.’ The Story of Man was a cross-community original […]

Ballinascreen

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Impressed by Terence McDonald’s film The Parish Centre, Fr Michael Collins commissioned McDonald to make Ballinascreen, documenting his parish in Draperstown, County Derry. This charming hour-long colour film, with a detailed narration by Gerry Wills, captures the farming practices, local industry, traditional music and dance, sport, religious life and education of the parish and surrounding […]