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Drama

The Fugitive

15th June 2021

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The Fugitive is a delightful slapstick comedy involving the pursuit of a runaway pram on the endless hills of Derry, loaded with cinematic references from Battleship Potemkin’s Odessa steps sequence to the US soap opera Peyton Place. What starts as a pleasant walk in the park becomes a chaotic chase involving a robber, a multiplying mob and even a […]

Entertainment

1 hour 23 mins

The Best Man

18th March 2021

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A feature-length black comedy drama set in Derry about alcohol and relationships, as heavy drinking and hapless best man Billy tries to corrupt his newly sober friend, the groom, on his wedding day. Produced, shot and edited by Terence McDonald. Billy (Seamus Ball) is an inveterate drinker and gambler who lives with his mother. The last of his circle of friends […]

Drama

18 mins

Requiem for Sally

18th March 2021

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A mother and father’s grief following the loss of their daughter in a road accident is mapped alongside the changing seasons in this contemplative short film written by John McCullagh and produced and directed by Terence McDonald. Each parent narrates their thoughts and emotions over the course of a year from the time of the tragedy. As with several […]

Drama

Nebelung

18th March 2021

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One of Terence McDonald’s more experimental, darker films, Nebelung centres on the distressed mental state of a German language teacher precipitated by the discovery of an old photograph in his classroom. A former teacher himself, McDonald captures the disarming stares of the children in the hushed but tense atmosphere of the classroom. On finding the old photo, the teacher suffers from claustrophobic hallucinations […]

Entertainment

Twilight Belle

18th March 2021

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‘How do you tell someone they may have been talking to a ghost?’ – The narrator asks throughout Terence McDonald’s uncanny ghost story The Twilight Belle, filmed on the beautiful Five Finger Strand in Donegal. When a woman discovers a ship’s bell washed up on the shore she is reminded of an earlier experience, causing her to question the existence of ghosts and recall how she first heard about […]

The Terence McDonald Collection

16 mins

The Stones Will Speak

18th March 2021

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Over magnificent images of Irish natural beauty, featuring Ben Bulben, Achill Island and Kylemore Abbey amongst other sites, voices of residents of the west coast tell the stories of their lives – dispelling romantic notions of rural life with tales of immigration, loneliness and hard work. The first sequence tells the story of an elderly man who recalls memories […]

The Terence McDonald Collection

The Secret

18th March 2021

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A spiritual fable, written by Fr Cyril Farrell, about a mysterious Christ-like figure who comes down from the mountain to visit a land shrouded in fog. The stranger remains in shadowy silhouette throughout this allegorical tale told in voiceover, accompanied by stunning images of flora and fauna. The stranger wonders why the communities of giants and pygmies are […]

Documentary

Long Hard Road

18th March 2021

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With opening and closing remarks from John Hume, Long Hard Road is a promotional film designed to appeal to American benefactors, highlighting the social improvement projects that have been aided by funds channeled from the Northern Ireland Resurgence Trust. Hume advocates that the real wealth of Northern Ireland is in its own people and that the people must harness their talents to lift themselves up. Projects which have secured funding include building […]

Documentary

The Portable Theatre

18th March 2021

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An appealing portrait of the McCormick players, one of the last travelling theatre groups in Ireland in the late 1960s. Terence McDonald captures their variety show of songs, sketches and puppetry, along with interviews with the family members, most of whom were born into the business and have been on stage from as young as three years […]

Documentary

15 mins

The City of Londonderry

18th March 2021

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Where McDonald and Hume’s Two Hours From London is aimed at encouraging tourism to the region, The City of Londonderry promotes the Derry of the late 1960s as a centre of industrial development and economic potential. The city’s origins, surroundings, transport links, population demographics, technical education and leisure facilities are set out as important reasons for the expansion […]

Documentary

The Open Door

18th March 2021

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The Open Door is a public information film from the 1960s encouraging the use of mental health services in the region of Derry. It is empathetically told from the point of view of a fictional character, burdened with the stresses of modern life, who checks himself into the Gransha Psychiatric Hospital, and emerges after six weeks […]

Documentary

The Option

18th March 2021

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Hear the views of the men behind the cloth in this humanising short documentary examining the changing role of the Roman Catholic priest in 1970s Ireland. In a range of interviews with clerics such as Father, later Bishop, Edward Daly and lay-people topics of celibacy, women, charity and social class are discussed. They reflect on what drew them to the […]