Rocky Road To Dublin

Rocky Road To Dublin

Synopsis

Irish-born journalist Peter Lennon and legendary French 'Nouvelle Vague' director of photography Raoul Coutard managed to get a society to condemn itself on camera. In Rocky Road to Dublin (1968), Ireland's patriotic sportsmen, priests, censors and 'brain-washed' children unwittingly convey the truth about a repressed and massively censored Republic. Lennon and Coutard expose the hypocrisy of church, politics and state through a series of seemingly 'innocent' interviews. Unsurprisingly, after one screening in a Dublin cinema in 1968, it was suppressed for more than three decades – never released in Ireland nor ever shown on Irish television.

Restored by Loopline films in 2004 and by the Irish Film Board and complemented by a new film (The Making of Rocky Road to Dublin) of additional footage featuring Lennon and Coutard revisiting the issues in contemporary context, the ensemble piece tells the complete story of the Rocky Road. In The Making of Rocky Road, Coutard breaks his silence by coming out of retirement to tell his story of the making of this revolutionary film set against the social and political backdrop of Dublin in the sixties. It features previously unreleased footage of Lennon confronting Godard and Truffaut in a furious debate surrounding the shutting down of Cannes, as well as the Paris Demonstrations that occurred surrounding the screening at the Sorbonne in full 'revolutionary' swing.

Special Features

- The Making of Rocky Road to Dublin (Paul Duane, 2004)