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ABOUT

Donal Foreman (born in Dublin, 1985) has been making films since he was 11. From his very first films, he has explored different forms of improvisatory and collaborative filmmaking methods in an effort to find a filmmaking process that is transformative, fun and not simply a means to an end.

An alumnus of the Irish National Film School and the Berlinale Talent Campus, Donal has written, directed and edited eight fiction short films since 2006 (the last four as part of Annville Films), as well as several experimental and documentary works. His fiction films have been created through a mixture of script, rehearsal and improvisation, and share a concern with notions of togetherness, solitude, memory and escape, paying close attention to the sensual minutiae of human behaviour, relationships and interaction with urban spaces - as well as the textural and expressive qualities of light, colour and sound.

Since winning the title of Ireland's Young Filmmaker of the Year at the Fresh Film Festival in 2003, Donal's shorts have been screened several times at the Cork Film Festival, Galway Film Fleadh, Darklight Festival and the Irish Film Institute and internationally in Italy, Spain, Hungary, Lithuania, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Singapore, Australia, the Phillipines and in the US in Alaska, Florida and Los Angeles. Film Ireland called one of his early shorts among “the very best short cinema this country has produced in recent years” and the Sunday Tribune described his film school graduate short as “ambitious, confident stuff, told with visual aplomb.” More recently, his film Repeat was one of nine shorts selected by the Cork Film Festival for their New Arrivals 2011 compilation dvd, and Pull was featured in a programme of "New Indie Voices" at the 2011 Darklight Festival. He has also worked in various capacities for other directors including Michael Grigsby, James Fotopoulos and Caveh Zahedi.

As a freelance film critic, Donal has been published in Cahiers du Cinema, the Brooklyn Rail, Paste Magazine, Film Ireland, Experimental Conversations, Estudios Irlandeses, Filmmakers Alliance Magazine in LA, the Berliner Zeitung in Germany, and the Manilla Bulletin in the Philippines. In New York City, he has worked as a teaching artist for the Tribeca Film Institute, an events manager for Union Docs and an organiser for Irish Film NYC. In Dublin, he worked as a film lecturer in the Dublin Business School; an editor for RTÉ's The Republic of Telly; a board member, film programmer and workshop facilitator for the Fresh Film Festival; a promo director/cameraman/editor for Irish Modern Dance Theatre and the Funky Seomra among others; and as a curator for Dublin’s Experimental Film Club. Other collective affiliations include (An)Other Irish Cinema, Annville Films and the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective.

Donal is the son of the late American documentary filmmaker, Arthur MacCaig (aka Arthur McCaig), and holds the rights to most of MacCaig's filmography. Several of the films can be rented or purchased in North America from Icarus Films but none of the films currently have distribution elsewhere.

He has a blog, a Vimeo, a Youtube, a Facebook, a Twitter and enjoys describing himself in the third person.

You can download Donal's CV here and he can be contacted by the email address written at the bottom of this page.

 

PRESS


Una Feely, Chief Programmer, Cork Film Festival 2011:

"There is a vibrant 'experimental film' scene in Ireland of which Donal Foreman is a leading figure. Repeat is a superbly crafted, beautifully shot example of his formidable talent in using cinema to convey not just emotion but an entire life."


Tony McKibbin, Scottish film critic, "Meaningfully on the Margins" for the(An)Other Irish Cinema project:

"Aren’t many ‘relationship’ films in one form or another really about this, about the shock of the emotionally new and its containment in the eventual creation of a couple? The contingent becomes the inevitable; but Foreman manages to find forms that often say it is the possibility of the possible that is most interesting. That we are all in states of emotional flux, looking not so much for ready berthing, but emotional conduits, however fleeting. "


Paul Lynch, "Dún Laoghaire students show what they are made of", The Sunday Tribune, June 15 2008:

"The most ambitious short was written and directed by Donal Foreman. You're Only What I See Sometimes is a film about a one-night stand very much inspired by the fleeting impressionism of love and memory in the work of Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-Wai. This was ambitious, confident stuff, told with visual aplomb. Foreman's film contained the cinematic moment of the night: a burst of spontaneous bedroom dancing from Hannah McDonnell that reminded me of Godard's freewheeling cinema. Anna Karina couldn't have done better herself. "


Hayley Reynolds, "Darklight Film Festival - A State Preview", State Magazine, October 19 2011:

One to watch is New York-based Irish filmmaker Donal Foreman and his evocative short film Pull is about a free-spirited girl in Dublin, trying to find her place to fit in, all the while in a relationship she finds somewhat smothering. Some powerful and beautifully shot scenes around Dublin and at a house party that stretches into the early hours, a party that doesn’t appear contrived, and involving some of the most naturalistic acting and dialogue you’re likely to have seen in a long while.


Tony Keily, "The Birth of Cool", Film Ireland 93, July/August 2003:

"The Unmentionable (Donal Foreman/Danny McMahon, Dog Day Films) was in a class apart. It deservedly took both First and Audience Prizes. The film managed to squeeze the blackest comedy out of a horrible premise. A gang of guys know what their pal doesn't: he's lost his girlfriend in a car crash. But it's his birthday so, hell, let's have a party anyway. Just don't mention... you know. Featuring defecation, vomiting, binge-drinking, violence, on- and off-screen death and saturated with what people used to call 'language', this was hilarious and daring filmmaking. It didn't do what it was told, and it successfully pushed out the boundaries of what anybody would consider acceptable or funny. The fact that the young audience so totally identified with it (female almost more than male) was also telling. The performances were perfect (the cast have been working together for years as an independent group), and pacing, camerawork and use of locations were all excellent. According to the makers, they couldn't agree on a scenario down to the last week before the submission date for Fresh. They finally hammered the script out in a flash, shot it in four days, and edited it in three, VCR to VCR! The last fact went unnoticed because the piece was in every way so accomplished.

"[The Unmentionable could] stand with the very best short cinema this country has produced in recent years."

 

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