BLACK ’47

Director: Lance Daly

2018, Ireland, 100, R

Screenwriter: Lance Daly, PJ Dillon, Pierce Ryan, and Eugene O'Brien.

Cast: James Frecheville, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, Freddie Fox, Sarah Greene, Jim Broadbent.

 

Black ’47 is something new: Ireland’s first full-length feature that takes place during An Gorta Mór, the devastating Famine of 1845-50, that decreased the country’s population by 2 million through death and immigration, and fueled a people’s thirst for independence. Martin Feeney (James Frecheville) plays a young man who has deserted from the British Army, returning home to Connemara only to find his family destroyed by hunger and eviction. Feeney sets off on a quest for revenge, including kidnapping of the local Anglo-Irish landowner (Jim Broadbent).

“It’s the ground zero of Irish history, yet it has never once been portrayed on film – till now. Black 47 succeeds magnificently in evoking the misery of the Famine while simultaneously treating us to a rattling adventure.” -Paul Whitington, the Irish Independent.