Children on Film

2000s-present

Marion agus an Banphrionsa

9th August 2021

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A heart-warming tale of a young girl’s encounter with Princess Grace of Monaco on her visit to Ireland in 1961. Marion agus an Banphrionsa shows that for a lucky few, dreams can come true. Courageous Marion steps in front of Princess Grace’s car as it drives through her village. She presents her with a bunch of roses, and the […]

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2000s-present

Joyriders

9th August 2021

IFI Archive Player Admin

Joyriders captures the powerful impact of grief on a young girl’s imagination.   In Dublin’s industrial wastelands, pre-teen Kylie drives around in a stolen car with a young companion who she has conjured from her troubled imagination.  At home her younger brother loses himself in video games. Her grieving mother is distant and unaware of Kylie’s illegal escapades until a young Guard finds […]

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2000s-present

New Boy

9th August 2021

IFI Archive Player Admin

Most children have enough to be worried about on their first day at school, but young African boy Joseph is different from all the other pupils. His arrival attracts the unwanted attention of teacher’s pet Hazel and kings of the playground Christian and Seth. Adapted from a Roddy Doyle short story, New Boy brings the […]

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2000s-present

Rúbaí

9th August 2021

IFI Archive Player Admin

‘God is everywhere, Rúbaí. Everyone knows that.’ – Despite her teacher’s declaration, eight-year-old Rúbaí challenges the existence of God in the days before her Holy Communion.   When Rúbaí continues to challenge her teacher and announces to the visiting priest  that she is an atheist, she provokes their frustration and leaves them speechless when she cites Charles Darwin as ‘a fella who makes sense’.  Enigmatic scenes of […]

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1980s-2000s

The Case of Majella McGinty

9th August 2021

IFI Archive Player Admin

A children’s game of ‘Charlie’s Angels’ transforms into a reality through the vivid imagination of little Majella McGinty. Life becomes too stressful for 8-year-old Majella and taking refuge she hides in a suitcase in her parents’ bedroom. She overhears their conversation, and her TV-addled imagination runs away with her when she believes her father has been murdered […]

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2000s-present

The White Dress

9th August 2021

IFI Archive Player Admin

An enigmatic tale of a young girl determined to participate in the ritual of First Holy Communion, even if she has to go it alone. A young girl wakes up in a grim flat, washes herself and dons a white dress, shoes and handbag.  She completes her outfit with white ribbons stolen from a shop as she makes […]

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2000s-present

The Door

9th August 2021

IFI Archive Player Admin

Shortly after the nuclear Chernobyl disaster in 1986, a father risks his life and returns to his deserted apartment to retrieve his front door. A family’s world is thrown into turmoil when they are suddenly forced to vacate their apartment block close to the site of the nuclear power plant explosion. They escape the exclusion […]

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2000s-present

Bua (Victory)

4th August 2021

IFI Archive Player Admin

A twelve-year-old girl gallops her horse fearlessly across the open countryside, an unspoken and visceral language emerging between them as the horse begins to see what she sees, and feel what she feels.   A young girl (Jemma Harris) sits on her majestic white horse driving him faster and faster as she tries to ride beyond […]

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2000s-present

Small Change

7th December 2020

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Karen (Nora-Jane Noone), a young single mother in border town Newry, is numbed by routine and her mundane existence as a supermarket shelf stacker. Amusement arcade slot machines have become her secret thrill and addiction. Her eight-year-old daughter Laura (Tina Maxwell) dreams of Christmas presents and sunny exotic family holidays, adding further pressure to Karen’s […]

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1980s-2000s

Not a Bad Christmas

7th December 2020

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A young boy teeters on the brink of innocence as Santa chokes on a Christmas snack, expires, and is buried in the garden pond. This deadpan Cork-set comedy, directed by renowned playwright and screenwriter Enda Walsh (Disco Pigs, Hunger), sees an early exploration of the kind of domestic dysfunction that appears in his later works […]

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2000s-present

Give Up Yer Aul Sins

20th December 2017

IFI Archive Player Admin

Give Up Yer Aul Sins humorously animates original audio recordings of Dublin schoolchildren made by their teacher Peg Cunningham in the 1960s. In the short film, a documentary crew arrives to record the activities of the classroom. The teacher chooses little Mary to retell, in her own imaginative way, the bible story of John the […]

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2000s-present

Old Fangs

21st August 2017

IFI Archive Player Admin

A young wolf decides to confront his father. He has not seen him since he was a child. This film is part of Children on Film. To see more from this collection, click here. With kind permission of Cartoon Saloon. IFI recommendation: 10+

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