watch Grace now via RT\u00c9 Player.<\/a><\/p>\n\n
We asked Anna for her choice cultural picks…<\/p>\n
FILM<\/p>\n
I went to Paul Rowley\u2019s defiantly punk and personal documentary Gays Against Guns at Dublin International Film Festival, which is very brave work in the current American climate. It reminded me of how I felt when I first watched Bowling for Columbine. Igor Bezinovi\u0107\u2019s film Fiume O Morto is a really original restaging of the fascist occupation of the Croatian city of Rijeka. It\u2019s totally bizarre and a brilliant performative documentary that pushes the boundaries of the genre. It recently won the European Film Award for Best Documentary.<\/p>\n
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As with all good docs, it\u2019s hard to find a way to see it but worth tracking down. Alan Gilsenan has a retrospective in the IFI coming up after a really prolific career. It includes the first series I ever worked on with him now twenty years ago \u2013 The Asylum, set in St. Ita\u2019s Psychiatric Hospital – which I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about lately as we discuss mental health care in Ireland since the move from these institutions to the community and all the problems that have remained unresolved since.<\/p>\n
MUSIC<\/p>\n
I\u2019m listening to the flamenco pop album Lux by Rosal\u00eda. It\u2019s dreamy and cinematic, crossing so many musical genres. Bj\u00f6rk collaborates with her on the track Berghain. Their performance at the Brit Awards earlier this year was awesome.<\/p>\n
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BOOK<\/p>\n
Blood and Water is the debut novel from Cork writer Rebecca Murphy, and I can’t stop thinking about it. It\u2019s such an intense story about a crumbling lesbian marriage, a family secret and the aftermath of grief. I\u2019ve really got pulled into the story now so look forward to discovering more. I\u2019m also excited to read Home Economics by Caitriona Lally after her novel Eggshells, which I loved. This one is a memoir about her balancing her creative writing ambition with a cleaning job in Trinity, juggling pregnancy, her relationship and everything in between. The writer\u2019s struggle with the economics of pursuing creativity versus taking higher-paying but less valued work is relatable, as is the question of what ‘success’ and ‘failure’ truly mean in the life of an artist and mother.<\/p>\n
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THEATRE<\/p>\n
A while ago now but I adored the raucous deconstruction of Hamlet by a group of Peruvian actors with Down Syndrome which was performed at the Dublin Theatre Festival last year. It\u2019s such a celebration of ability and a reminder of the importance of inclusion in the arts. What they achieved was incredible. Many of the audience took to the stage to dance with the cast at the end of the show including Irish actress Carrie Crowley. When I saw her joy with them I knew I had to cast her in our film Grace and I grabbed her to ask her as she came off stage. In the moment she said yes.<\/p>\n
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TV<\/p>\n
Just caught up with season two of Am I Being Unreasonable? I love recommending it to people and seeing their reaction to it. It\u2019s so funny and bizarre. It\u2019s refreshing watching something that isn\u2019t another procedural or formulaic drama. You\u2019re laughing at it but also slightly on edge the whole time. It has the same energy as Baby Reindeer. Such an unusual and clever series.<\/p>\n
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I also loved The Task, which feels completely different. It\u2019s a much quieter, more subtle drama with Mark Ruffalo and Irish actress Alison Oliver whose accent in this is incredible. I especially loved the episodes directed by Jeremiah Zagar. You could really tell when he was in the driving seat because of the gorgeous cinematic immersive moments with the characters. It\u2019s not a high paced crime drama if that\u2019s what you\u2019re into. It turned into a complex moral story and quite a tear-jerker by the end. It has stayed with me.<\/p>\n
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GIG<\/p>\n
As a working mother of two boys my weekends these days are for them so I\u2019ve swapped late night gigs for packed afternoons. I really enjoyed getting involved in the musical storytelling of Jesse Grimes in the National Concert Hall at her 1001 Arabian Nights show. She has another performance of Prokofiev\u2019s beloved Peter and the Wolf coming up complete with some shadow puppetry. As adults I think it\u2019s great to be playful with your children at something like this. These shows are interactive and it isn\u2019t so embarrassing when everyone around you is under 10. As an aside, I loved how Jesse Grimes blew Tommy Tiernan\u2019s mind recently and brought the concept of queer family making with a non-binary partner into our living rooms.<\/p>\n
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ART<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a bit biased but I really enjoyed attending the opening of The Last Balkan Cowboy by Dragana Jurisi\u0107 in the Temple Bar Gallery. The exhibition takes its title from her eponymous debut film which myself and my business partner Zlata Filipovi\u0107 are producing. Her photographs were made during our three cross-country trips throughout 2024-2025 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia in between location scouting, research and filming. It\u2019s a Wild West inspired cinematic series of images dedicated to the ghost of Jurisi\u0107\u2019s homeland of former Yugoslavia and her tragic hero Hari D\u017eekson who made eastern westerns. Look out for when it is on again with the film\u2019s release.<\/p>\n
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PODCAST<\/p>\n
I love podcasts which use documentary storytelling techniques to take us into different lives and worlds. I\u2019m current listening to Flesh and Code, which is a really unsettling investigation into people\u2019s need for human connection through AI companions and reveals a very dark side to this phenomenon and the businesses who profit from people\u2019s loneliness.<\/p>\n
We need your consent to load this Spotify contentWe use Spotify to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\nTECH<\/p>\n
The truth is the camera I use most is my phone but I recently bit the bullet and got myself a Fuji X100VI. It\u2019s expensive but I try not to let that stop me bringing it places. It fits in your pocket or a small bag. It looks like a retro analogue camera but it has a 40MP sensor and a fixed 23mm lens. The fixed focal length might limit some people but I love its simplicity. It also shoots video but for a cheaper option I recently got to try out a DJI Osmo Pocket 3 Creator Combo. It\u2019s such a fun little camera and really easy to use. Great for making videos and home movies on the go, and records great sound with a separate radio mic that easily syncs to the unit. I think it\u2019s one you\u2019re likely to bring to things because of its compact size and also how fun it is to use!<\/p>\n
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THE NEXT BIG THING…<\/p>\n
I\u2019m looking forward to Kim Bartley\u2019s debut drama feature after directing many great documentaries. It is starring Barry Keoghan and is called Lemonade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anna Rodgers is an award-winning film director and producer – her recent RT\u00c9 Storyland drama Grace is nominated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,270],"class_list":["post-378006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}