In the film, you will see Helen Hooker’s powerful photos depict a newly free Ireland, for the first time, from a woman’s point of view. You will hear the words of Ernie O’Malley, the most literary Irish voice to emerge from the fight for Irish freedom. You will engage with some of Ireland’s leading artistic and cultural figures such as John Behan, Paddy Moloney, Dr. Ed Walsh, Trish Lambe, Tanya Kiang, Yvonne Davis and Orla Fitzpatrick as well as many others as they uncover the meaning of this archive and offer insightful critical commentary.
In making the film we conducted extensive interviews and drew upon a collection of 20,000 photographs. We benefited from the results of numerous major exhibitions and scoured newly discovered letters that present a portrait of Helen and Ernie in Ireland. It’s only now, after many decades of effort by Cormac, that we have been able to see who Helen and Ernie were, what challenges they faced, the personal meaning of the work they created, and the public outcomes it had. After almost two years of work, the film is complete.