With the catalogue of films available on IFI@Home growing steadily since the platform’s establishment, it was felt that new viewers might appreciate some tips on where to start, while viewers more familiar with the range of titles on offer may welcome recommendations of films they might not previously have considered. To this end, we have asked some of the guests we are fortunate enough to have had pass through our Eustace Street home to recommend five films that can be seen on the platform, according to their own personal tastes. We hope this will help viewers to find undiscovered gems.
Donald Clarke, Chief Film Correspondent at The Irish Times, offers his selection.
These are (almost certainly) not the best five films on IFI@Home. Nor are they necessarily my absolute favourite. Either such list might take in such titles as Peter Lennon’s Rocky Road to Dublin or Sean Baker’s The Florida Project. One could draw a potential 10-best from the wall of Ingmar Bergman titles alone. Biasing a little towards the IFI’s fine selection of domestic releases, the five here suggests, rather, films that may have gone a little under the radar. Something you weren’t aware of. Something you were aware of, but never got around to. Those sorts of things.
In no particular order…
The 8th (Aideen Kane, Lucy Kennedy, Maeve O’Boyle – 2021) This gripping documentary on the campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment of the Irish Constitution gets a mention because it’s very good. More than that. It is so much better than it needed to be. The subject of abortion legislation always draws eyes in this jurisdiction, but the directors here work furiously to detail history in depth, outline campaign strategies and – thanks to contributions from the likes of Wendy Grace and John McGuirk – allow space for the case against. An invaluable slice of history that never lets up in pace.
Starve Acre (Daniel Kokotajlo – 2023) A thesis. The relative low profile of Kokotajlo’s excellent rural horror suggests that over-exposure to the concept – rather than the reality – of “folk horror” has deadened the interest of audiences. Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark are dealing badly with life out on the Yorkshire moors. Their son hears voices. The “old religion” is making its presence felt. Seen it all before? Well, no, you really haven’t. A properly creepy fable that connects powerfully with universal terrors.
Hole in the Head (Dean Kavanagh – 2022) Over the last three years a tiny, tiny cult has developed around this brilliantly peculiar film from a singular Irish experimentalist. There are the makings of a fully mainstream entertainment in the scenario. A young man tries to piece together the disappearance of his parents from the family pile a quarter of a century earlier. Scratchy cassette tapes, foxed photographs and fuzzy “archival” footage offer clues and deflections. It’s all wilfully baffling, but also enormously good fun. I cherish the “merch” I have acquired, particularly the celluloid bookmarks. One day they’ll be worth thousands.
Chi-Raq (Spike Lee – 2015) What is the most underrated of the many Spike Lee films that evaded mainstream attention? Get on the Bus? Bamboozled? Crooklyn? All reasonable contenders. My suggestion, however, is his epic musical set amid gang violence on the Southside of Chicago. Loosely inspired by Aristophanes’s Lysistrata, the film follows a group of women who threaten to withhold sex unless the fighting ceases. The chaotic, insistent picture got largely positive reviews, but there was a sense distributors had no idea how to sell the thing. Great score from Terence Blanchard. First-class performances from Nick Cannon and Teyonah Parris.
Out of Here (Dónal Foreman – 2013)
Foreman has one of the most singular voices in contemporary Irish cinema. The Image you Missed grappled with personal history in hybrid-documentary form. The Cry of Granuaile took a wild swing at the myth-making syndrome. Out of Here, his first dramatic feature, did a fine job of preparing the world for what was to come. A quiet, meandering study of a young man on a troubled journey home, the picture made a virtue of its own creative evasions. There is an Asian feel to the ordered drift of the images.
Donald Clarke, Fives of Others Contributor, July 2025
To view filmmaker Sinéad O’Shea’s Fives of Others selection, click here.
