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Silence, written & directed by Pat Collins

There seems to be a lot of Rory Gallagher’s music making its way into television and films of late. Director Marian Quinn used the song I Fall Apart during a crucial scene in her “coming of age” movie, 32A. Joel Conroy used In Your Town in his documentary about surfing off the coast of the Emerald Isle called, Waveriders. And then there was the television series about a boxer trying to make a comeback, aptly named Lights Out, that used several of Rory’s tunes including the posthumously released Wheels Within Wheels. You can add one more to the growing list. This coming week at the Dublin International Film Festival, a new film by Pat Collins, titled Silence will be screened, and Rory Gallagher’s I Fall Apart is used in its opening credits. What better way to fill the Silence than with a Rory Gallagher song!

The story follows Eoghan O’Suilleabháin (Mac Giolla Bhríde), an
Irishman living in Berlin. He has been commissioned to undertake an
unusual project: to travel to the most remote areas in Ireland to record
silence – as it may have existed before man’s impact on the local
geography. These locations are places where outsiders don’t visit,
places inaccessible by public transport and often not documented by
cartography. These are places that strict notions of time subside and
past and present appear to merge into one.– Colm McAuliffe

Director Pat Collins had used Rory’s music previously in a documentary about the City of Cork called, Cathair Corcaigh. I wondered about the reason for including I Fall Apart in his latest project. It turns out that a steady diet of Rory’s music was served in the Collins household:

I grew up listening to Rory Gallagher’s music. I remember when Rory Gallagher played the Macroom Mountain Dew Festival in 77 and my two older brothers went, all torn jeans and denim jackets…but I was too young to go. I was only ten at the time. But his music was always on in the house. Calling Card was the first album I remember but the 74 tour and early Taste records were around as well. I used a Rory Gallagher track ‘Walk on Hot Coals’ in another documentary I made about Cork City called ‘Cathair Chorcaí’.

For ‘Silence’ we were also looking at a Neil Young track ( the guitar solo in ‘Words’) but it was the fact that the character was driving back from Germany to Ireland, it just seemed right that it should be a Rory Gallagher track. We tried lots of Rory songs but it was the editor’s brother-in-law who said ‘If I was driving from Germany to Ireland the Rory Gallagher song I would be listening to would be ‘I Fall apart’.” So we tried it and were sold on it immediately.
We wanted to show a fragment of a map in the driving sequence and the editor Tadhg O’Sullivan put in Ballyshannon, Co Donegal. I think it was a joke against me and my Cork origins. — Pat Collins

Below is the clip of the opening credits containing Rory Gallagher’s I Fall Apart. Special thanks to producer Tina Moran for providing me with this film clip. Hopefully more and more Irish directors will include Rory’s music in their films. No finer thread could be woven into these rich Irish tapestries!

‘Silence’ Opening Titles from Tina Moran on Vimeo.

Film Summary: Eoghan is a sound recordist who is returning to Ireland for the first time in 15 years. The reason for his return is a job offer: to record landscapes free from man-made sound. His quest takes him to remote terrain, away from towns and villages.

Throughout his journey, he is drawn into a series of encounters and conversations which gradually divert his attention towards a more intangible silence, one that is bound up with the sounds of the life he had left behind.

Influenced by elements of folklore and archive, Silence unfolds with a quiet intensity, where poetic images reveal an absorbing meditation on themes relating to sound and silence, history, memory and exile.

For further information:
www.harvestfilms.ie/silence
See trailer here: http://vimeo.com/35630154

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