THE BLOW-IN

8mins ‧ HDV ‧ Ireland/Germany/UK ‧ 2016

Performative ethnofiction documentary made in the small town of Gort in the west of Ireland with migrant 'blow-in' residents in four languages: French, Portuguese, Irish and English. 

Frenchwoman Véronique has been living in the small town of Gort in the West of Ireland for 6 years but she still doesn't feel at home. But she's always felt like a stranger, even when she was a child in France. Veronique looks into the windows of people living in Gort today to see what 'a real home' is like. She sees a Brasilian woman talking to her dog, an old couple speaking in the Irish language and a young Romanian woman talking to an old man who was born in the same room where they are talking and has never lived anywhere else. The Blow-in explores the age-old question of home and belonging as a counter-narrative to rising nationalism and racism in post/pre Brexit UK, the Trumping of USA, and the rising right and closed borders of the EU. 

The Blow-in was made as a commission by 'Europoly: Europe in Times of Transformation' by the Goethe Institute.  

SCREENINGS: 

Cork Film Festival, Gate Cinema, 14 & 18 November 2016 

Dublin International Short Film and Music Festival, 7 October 2016 

Dublin Fringe Festival, Filmbase, Dublin, 19 September 2016 

Lithuania Goethe Institute, 6 May 2016 

Muencher Kammerspeile, Germany, 21 February 2016 

Berlinale, 9 February 2016 

Melbourne Irish Film Festival, 6 April 2017 

Sydney Irish Film Festival, 30 March 2017 

Festival International de Cine en Puerto Vallarta, 14 March 2017 

Short Film Competition: EU project 'SOURCE', Brussels, 8 Nov 2018 

Mokhtar Festival, Paris, 2018, nominated for Best Director - watch here in English, French or Arabic 

Selected as video installation for Home: Being and Belonging in Contemporary Ireland, Glucksman Gallery, Cork, 11 May - 31 Oct 2021