An accessible, comprehensive overview of contemporary Irish cinema, this book is intended for use as a third-level textbook and is designed to appeal to academics in the areas of film studies and Irish studies. Responding to changes in the Irish production environment, it includes chapters on new Irish genres such as creative documentary, animation and horror. It discusses shifting representations of the countryside and the city, always with a strong concern for gender representations, and looks at how Irish historical events, from the Civil War to the Troubles, and the treatment of the traumatic narrative of clerical sexual abuse have been portrayed in recent films. It covers works by established auteurs such as Neil Jordan and Jim Sheridan, as well as new arrivals, including the Academy Award-winning Lenny Abrahamson.

Reviews

'Irish Cinema in the Twenty-First Century is aimed at an academic readership and, achieving impressive comprehensiveness in a compact package, it deserves to become a standard text on an exciting, still-developing period in Irish culture. There is useful material here on horror, Northern Ireland, animation and the continuing underrepresentation of women. Her decision to begin each chapter with analysis of a short film lends the book a satisfyingly eccentric structure.'
Donald Clarke, Irish Times, August 2019

'With the relative lack of published literature on the Irish film industry and its product, Barton's book is a most welcome and authoritative discourse on the subject.'
Books Ireland

'This is a rich, insightful book. It is intellectually rigorous but also written in an accessible, clear and concise manner, and is essential for those with an interest in Irish cinema. It will likely stand alongside Barton's earlier works as a touchstone of Irish film studies.'
NewsFour

Introduction
1 How to make an Irish film
Short film Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty
2 Animating Ireland
Short film Foxes
3 Ireland of the horrors
Short film The Herd
4 Documenting Ireland
Short film Pentecost
5 Irish history and trauma
Short film The Shore
6 Filming Northern Ireland
Short film Six Shooter
7 Rural and small-town Ireland on screen
Short film New Boy
8 images of the city
Conclusion
Index

Author

Ruth Barton is Associate Professor in Film Studies at Trinity College Dublin. She is the author of several books, including Irish National Cinema and critical biographies of the film star Hedy Lamarr and the silent director Rex Ingram. She appears regularly on radio as a film historian and critic.