Martin McDonagh is the poet laureate of profanity and invective, as fans of In Bruges and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri can swear to. He will take a simple difference of opinion and transform it into deadpan comic aria of pigheadedness and mounting consternation. And in Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson he has a perfect double act: the dim hunk—Pádraic—and the old curmudgeon, Colm, best buddies almost by default. But then one day, out of the blue, Colm announces he’s had it up to here with his best friend, and cuts him off once and for all. One more word, he dares him, he’ll take a pair of garden shears and start chopping off the fingers on his own hand. The way he says it, you know he’d do it, and before long the whole village is consumed in the breakup.
Set on one of the Aran Islands on the west coast of Ireland in the 1920s, The Banshees of Inisherin may be a quieter, more contemplative film than McDonagh’s shown us before (County Galway has never looked more ravishing), but it’s uproariously funny all the same, guaranteed to bring the house down.
Best Actor (Colin Farrell) & Best Screenplay, Venice 2022
Martin McDonagh
Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan
Ireland/UK/USA
2022
English
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Doll
In our new Film Studies series on Thursdays, Devan Scott guides us through the evolution of lighting techniques from the silent era to the present day. Each presentation will include a classic film screening; this week, The Doll (1919).
The Art of Adventure
The unbelievable adventure story of how painter Robert Bateman and ecologist Bristol Foster drove a Land Rover from Africa to Australia in 1957, developing a love of nature to last a lifetime. An inspirational love letter to the adventure of life itself.
How Deep Is Your Love
Filmmaker Eleanor Mortimer tags along with a team of oceanographers and marine biologists as they survey the Clarion-Clipperton fracture, one of the most remote spots on Earth, home to a dazzling array of unknown creatures.
Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other
This intimate and candid film by a younger husband and wife artist team is a delicate and immensely moving dual portrait of two artists, husband and wife, together and apart, at that point in life when the end casts a shadow over even the sunniest day.
Image: © Manon et Jacob and Final Cut For Real
Do You Love Me
Lana Daher's bravura and defiant non-fiction film is a cultural-historical self-portrait of Beirut, comprised entirely of film clips (many of them from dramatic features, but also from news reports, TV and home video) culled from the last 70 years.
Credits
Executive Producer
Diarmuid McKeown, Ben Knight, Daniel Battsek, Ollie Madden
Producer
Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Martin McDonagh
Screenwriter
Martin McDonagh
Cinematography
Ben Davis
Editor
Mikkel E.G. Nielsen
Production Design
Mark Tildesley
Original Music
Carter Burwell