The Rocky Road to Dublin

"What is to be done when the revolution is over and a new society has to be built?" According to Peter Lennon, the Irish have never been able to answer this question. Fifty years after the 1916 Easter rising, which resulted in the Irish Republic's declaration of independence, he sought to ask a number of influential Irish figures how they saw their country's evolution. He shows critical images of contemporary Ireland, shot in collaboration with Raoul Coutard. The result is an uncompromising portrait of a country burdened by clerical pressure, incapable of constructing its own future, its head still buried in its own past. Only rarely presented in Dublin since it was released, the film has never been seen on Irish television. It was, however, screened during in Cannes in May 1968.