Podcast: Alan Gilsenan, Director of 'The Days Of Trees'

In this podcast, Gemma Creagh talks to Alan Gilsenan about his latest film, 'The Days Of Trees'.

Listen now on SoundCloud, Apple, Spotify, Acast and Amazon, or subscribe to Film Ireland wherever you get your podcasts.

In this highly orig­i­nal fea­ture doc­u­men­tary, Tomás, a middle-​aged film pro­ducer, embarks on a jour­ney of dis­cov­ery with his friend and col­league, film direc­tor, Alan. As they progress, we wit­ness first-​hand Tomás’s unearthing of fresh and star­tling child­hood hap­pen­ings which had some­how eluded his mem­ory. What fol­lows is a pro­found pil­grim­age towards uncov­er­ing how spo­radic crises in adult­hood, amidst an oth­er­wise ‘nor­mal’ life, had their roots in sophis­ti­cated sex­ual abuse by Chris­t­ian Broth­ers in the late 1960s.

There is con­sid­er­able beauty in this psy­cho­log­i­cal exca­va­tion, the shad­owy black and white palette lend­ing inti­macy to the unflinch­ingly hon­est tes­ti­mony. This is the story of a man, not seek­ing vengeance, but seek­ing to tran­scend the trauma of his trou­bled past, ulti­mately find­ing redemption.

The Days of Trees reunites direc­tor Alan Gilse­nan and pro­ducer Tomás Hardi­man to com­plete the third in their loose tril­ogy with the acclaimed Meet­ings with Ivor and The Meet­ing.

The Days Of Trees is in cinemas from 12th April 2024.