'North Circular' - Film Screening

Join us for this special screening, hosted by Aingeala Flannery with a guest performance by Stephen James Smith, followed by a post-show discussion with director Luke McManus.

Presented in partnership with the Dublin Book Festival and Dublin City University as part of The Artist and The City symposium.

"North Circular" is a multiple award-winning documentary musical that travels the length of Dublin's iconic North Circular Road, where local characters share powerful and moving stories, accompanied by traditional ballads and folk music. The film weaves together the ghosts of the past with the conflicts and celebrations of today, all with a touch of Dublin humor.

An extraordinary hit in Irish cinemas and on screens worldwide, "North Circular" has won eight festival awards, including the Grand Prix at FIPADOC Biarritz and the American Cinematographer Award at the Salem Film Festival. Praised by critics, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian calls it "resonant, vivid, and beautifully shot… pregnant with images and ideas… a film made with real artistry," while Steve Kopian of Unseen Films declares it "truly breathtaking… a must."

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Luke McManus is a documentary film maker based in Dublin. He has made acclaimed films for Netflix, BBC, NBC, Channel 4, ITV, RTÉ, TV3, NDR, Virgin Media Television, Al-Jazeera and TG4. His work has won four Irish Film & Television Awards, the Celtic Media Award, the Radharc Prize, the EBU Connect Award and the Grand Prix at FIPADOC. His debut feature documentary as a director, North Circular, had its International Premiere at Sheffield Doc/Fest in 2022 and won eight awards in total including prizes at Dublin IFF, Louth IFF and Indie Cork Film Festival as well as winning the Grand Prix at France's leading documentary festival, FIPADOC in Biarritz, the Sound On Screen Award at Thin Line in Denton, Texas and the American Cinematographer Award at Salem Film Fest.

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Stephen James Smith, born in Dublin, is an Irish poet, writer, performer, playwright, and educator. Their short poetry films have captivated millions, earning them the opportunity to perform alongside notable names like Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam), Patti Smith, Shane MacGowan, Bono (U2), Imelda May, and Glen Hansard. With close to 1,000 gigs worldwide over the past 20 years in locations from Ballydehob to Bangkok, and significant performances at venues like Glastonbury, the Radio City Music Hall, New York, the Nuyorican Poetry Café, the Centre Culturel Irlandais (Paris), and the Barbican and Palladium (London). Stephen has demonstrated a commanding presence on the stage. As a recording artist, Stephen’s work has been lauded both nationally and internationally, leading to Stephen being dubbed “Dublin’s unofficial poet laureate." Acknowledging that success is a blend of luck, hard work, and subjectivity, Stephen invites you to form your own opinions about their work.

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Aingeala Flannery is the 2024 Writer in Residence at Dublin City University. Her critically acclaimed novel The Amusements won both the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year at Listowel Writers’ Week 2023 and the John McGahern Prize. Aingeala was awarded a Literature Bursary by the Arts Council of Ireland in 2020 and 2021. She is a former Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair winner. In 2019, her short story Visiting Hours won the Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize, while her personal essays have been published by Paper Visual Art (PVA) and have been broadcast on RTÉ Radio One. Aingeala is deputy publisher of The Dublin Review and the producer/presenter of The Dublin Review Podcast. She holds an MA in Journalism from DCU and an MFA in Creative Writing from University College Dublin.

Host or Publisher Dublin City University