Theocracy - The Emigrant's Artist
Can art help one make sense of a life started on the wrong foot? Can art help us survive?
Renowned documentary filmmaker Sé Merry Doyle (John Ford - Dreaming The Quiet Man, Patrick Kavanagh - No Mans Fool) returns to CIFF with the world premiere of this beautiful new feature documentary based on the life and work of London-based artist Bernard Canavan, who after a tragic start in life, having been placed in a Dublin orphanage, known as "The House of Shame", rose to become globally known as "The Emigrant's Artist', the painter of the Irish navvies and nurses, who had no choice but to leave a broken Ireland and take the Cattle Boat to England, to find work in the 1950s and 60s.
Doyle charts Canavan's extraordinary journey in trying to find out who he really is and captures how, as he approaches the age of 80, he turns his gaze away from painting the emigrants to compose a whole new collection, "Theocracy", through which he dares to confronts what the Catholic Church did to him and thousands of other unfortunates who found themselves in orphanages and Mother and Baby homes in 20th century Ireland.
The director Sé Merry Doyle will introduce this film and a Q&A with Sé and Bernard Canavan will follow the screening.
Preceded by A PLACE AWAY (Ellie O’Sullivan | United Kingdom | 1989 | 10 mins), introduced by Best New Irish Feature Award juror Charlotte O'Sullivan, daughter of the filmmaker.
Watch our Senior Programmer, Don O’Mahony talk about why he picked this film as one of his must-see movies of CIFF 2025, here.
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