Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story – The European Film Festival

Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story

Ireland

In 1960, a young Irish author named Edna O’Brien wrote a sexually frank debut novel, “The Country Girls”. An international literary sensation, her success and notoriety enraged her writer husband and made her a pariah in Ireland, where her books were banned. Undaunted, she would move to London, where she conducted numerous love affairs, hosted star-studded parties, and made and lost a fortune. In July 2024, Edna O’Brien passed away and this film provides a final testimony from her, aged 93, as she reflects upon her extraordinary life for filmmaker Sinéad O’Shea. Granting the director access to her personal journals, read aloud in the film by Oscar-winning Irish actor Jessie Buckley, and with additional perspectives offered from Gabriel Byrne, Walter Mosley, and other renowned artists, O’Brien does not shy away from
any subject.

“The film is as candid and as pleasurable as O’Brien’s novels… The light may have dimmed on her celebrity, but this documentary is a revelation.” Thom Powers, TIFF 2024

“A fitting tribute … Sinead O’Shea’s warm, empathetic documentary [is] executed in the same spirit of openness and friendship that O’Brien brought to her own headlong passions.” Fionnuala Halligan, Screen International

In Person

Online

Presented By:

COMMUNITY PARTNER:

Screening preceded by:
JAMES JOYCE’S Finnegans Wake chapter 4

“Toronto’s enterprising One Little Goat Theatre Company” (New York Times) continues its cinematic journey through James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake as brought to life by the virtuosic performance of Irish-Canadian actor Richard Harte, directed by Adam Seelig, filmed live in Toronto. “Richard Harte has found a way to crack the private code and maintain the original voltage of… Joyce’s Finnegans Wake.” (Cahir O’Doherty, The Irish Voice) For more: onelittlegoat.org/finneganswake.

presented by

With support from the

and Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company.