The Brothers
Pavee Lackeen
Screening on Film
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The Brothers
Directed by Mikey O Flatharta.
With Nicholas Butler, Paddy Butler.
Ireland, 2006, digital video, color, 25 min.
This fascinating documentary examines the relationship of two elderly brothers, Nicholas and Paddy Butler, both bachelors, seemingly poor and living together in a modest farm in Co. Waterford. In reality however they are both millionaires, wealthy from years of successful beef farming. And when one of them dies it is revealed that he had a daughter. Filmmaker Mikey O Flatharta Darba peels back the deceptive layers to reveal the complexities and contradictions that underlie rural Irish life.
Perry Ogden’s debut feature is an intimate and powerful portrait of Winnie, a resilient and spirited young girl who lives with her family in a dilapidated trailer on the side of a road in Dublin. Members of Ireland’s marginalized traveler community, Winnie and her family live in Third World poverty, struggling to get by in a modern and highly prosperous Ireland. Shot in a rough handheld style that recalls the immediacy of the neorealist and cinema verite movements, Pavee Lackeen is a rare and uncompromising look at one of Ireland’s most invisible communities. Winner of the 2005 Irish Film & Television Award for Best Film.