Neasa Ní Chianáin

Mr. McArevey is a visionary headmaster at a Catholic primary school in one of the toughest neighborhoods of Belfast, Northern Ireland. He loves Elvis and teaches his students to connect with their feelings, while taking on the legacies of the “The Troubles.” In this exceptional portrait of a community still healing from trauma, we follow this educator extraordinaire as he uses Ancient Greek wisdom as an antidote for pessimism, violence, and historical despair.

John and Amanda teach Latin, English and guitar at a fantastical stately home-turned-school. Nearly 50-year careers are drawing to a close for the pair who have become legends with the mantra: “Reading! ’Rithmetic! Rock ’n’ roll!” But for pupil and teacher alike, leaving is the hardest lesson.

Fairytale of Kathmandu is a 2007 documentary by Neasa Ní Chianáin. The documentary focused on visits by the poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh to Nepal during which he had close relationships with many young boys of 16 years old or younger. The documentary questioned whether Ó Searcaigh's relationships with these youths were exploitative and whether they demonstrated a power and wealth imbalance between the 50 year old Ó Searcaigh and the young Nepalese. Ó Searcaigh is presented in the documentary as paying for the housing, food, bicycles and clothing of boys at most 16 years old. He mentions on camera having sex with some of them, denying that he abused them or that he coerced them into having sex with him.

The Alexander Complex unravels a bizarre tale of intrigue, politics and money as an international group of ‘gentlemanly explorers’, all with pseudonyms to protect their identities, come together in a quest to solve the mystery of the missing tomb of Alexander the Great, one of the most significant figures in human history. An Algerian ex-soldier, code-named The Inventor, who practices amateur archaeology, claims to have found Alexander’s tomb in Jordan, and claims that it is filled with thousands of tons of gold and precious jewels.

Filmed over the last 18 months of the Irish Green Party’s time in government, Forever is Now follows party leader Eamon Ryan and his team on the political frontier of the climate crisis. Interwoven with this, the film follows Ryan’s relationship with his autistic son, Tommy, exploring hope, patience and a deeply personal relationship with nature at a critical tipping point in climate action.

When we are gone, what do people remember of us? Neal MacGregor, an English artist, died alone, prematurely, aged 44, in a stone hen-house that he couldn’t stand up in, where he lived without water, electricity or heating on a remote island. The Gaelic-speaking islanders on the rapidly depopulating island, knew little of Neal during the 8 years he lived there. Who was this Stranger? Was he a British spy recording IRA gun-running routes, as some islanders thought? Was he trying to take control of the island? Was he crazy, as others thought? Or was he just seeking solitude? Neal left behind volumes of beautifully illustrated notebooks and secret diaries, and this beautiful enigmatic film pulls together the jigsaw of missing pieces, and sensitively paints a portrait of a man, living on the edge, physically and mentally, and the insular island community he lived amongst.