Rocky Road To Dublin

Encouraged by the controversy he had stirred with a series of newspaper articles and inspired by French 'New Wave' filmmakers of the era, Dublin-born Peter Lennon, who had lived and worked in Paris as a journalist for a decade, decided to revisit his native country in 1967 to make a film assessing the state of the nation.

Amidst scenes of everyday Irish life -- on the streets, in the classroom, at pubs, sporting events, dance halls, and a lively discussion amongst Trinity College students -- ROCKY ROAD TO DUBLIN blends interviews with writers Sean O'Faolain and Conor Cruise O'Brien, a spokesman for the Gaelic Athletic Association, theater producer Jim Fitzgerald, a member of the censorship board, an editor of The Irish Times, film director John Huston, and a young Catholic priest, Father Michael Cleary.

Now available in a newly-restored version prepared by The Irish Film Institute, this controversial film can at last be reassessed after a nearly forty-year period of neglect.

The Making of The Rocky Road to Dublin

This documentary reunites director Peter Lennon and cinematographer Raoul Coutard, who recount the making of their then controversial but now classic documentary on Ireland in the Sixties. Rocky Road to Dublin was screened for only a few weeks at a single Dublin theater and was critically condemned and accused of being Communist-funded. But as Lennon explains, while the Irish saw Rocky Road to Dublin as an insult, the French saw it as a film.

Rocky Road to Dublin was selected for the prestigious Critics' Week at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival, where it was the last film publicly screened before the festival was stopped in solidarity with the then-erupting May '68 events in Paris. During that tumultuous period, Rocky Road to Dublin was screened numerous times throughout Paris by student groups, with whom the film's theme of "What do you do with your revolution once you've got it" obviously struck a responsive chord.

In addition to scenes of the May '68 protests in Paris, THE MAKING OF ROCKY ROAD TO DUBLIN features rare Cannes footage of Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut demanding that the festival be shut down and the argumentative responses from Peter Lennon and others in the audience. The documentary also reprises key scenes from the original film, contrasted with a return to some of its locations nearly forty years later.