Capturing a year in the life of a rural, lakeside community in 1980s Ireland, That They May Face The Rising Sun is a sensitive and beautifully realised adaptation of the last novel by John McGahern. It’s directed by Pat Collins, who (in addition to more recent films like The Dance and Song of Granite) previously made a 2005 documentary about McGahern’s life and work.
Joe (Barry Ward) and Kate (Anna Bederke) have returned from London to live and work in a small, close-knit community in rural Ireland, close to where Joe grew up. He’s a writer, she’s an artist and photographer who retains part ownership of a London gallery. Now embedded in a remote lakeside setting, the drama of a year in their lives and those of their neighbours unfolds through the rituals of work, play and the passing seasons.
Collins has crafted a delicate, meditative exploration of ritual, community bonds, and the question of how best to live. A quietly stunning adaptation of a book by a writer concerned with the ways Irish lives were changing and modernising in the 20th century, with gorgeous scenery filmed on the shore of Loch Na Fooey in County Galway.
