The Days of Trees

Face the Dark, Find the Dawn

Sat­ur­day 20 April – IFTA awards 2024.
WIN­NER – George Mor­ri­son Fea­ture Doc­u­men­tary cat­e­gory.

In cin­e­mas April – August 2024

QFT Belfast ·
IFI Dublin ·
Pálás Gal­way ·
EYE Gal­way ·
Triskel Cork
& selected cinemas

Book Tick­ets:

The Nerve Cen­tre Cin­ema, Derry, Sun­day 11 August, 7pm
as part of Féile Derry 2024

Belltable Lim­er­ick, Mon­day 24 June, 5pm and 8pm
with Q&A with Alan Gilse­nan after the 5pm screening

Queen’s Film The­atre, Belfast, Wednes­day 19 June, 8:30pm
(as part of the Docs Ire­land 2024 festival)

Mountshan­non Arts Fes­ti­val, East Clare, Mon­day 3 June, 5:30pm

IFI, Dublin: Encore Screen­ing with Q&A, Mon­day 20 May

Triskel, Cork: from Sun 5 May

EYE, Gal­way: from Sat 20 April

Pálás, Gal­way: from Fri 19 April

IFI, Dublin: 12 – 18 April

August Diary

Sun­day 11 August The Nerve Cen­tre Cin­ema, Derry at 7pm
as part of Féile Derry 2024

June Diary

Mon­day 24 June Two Screen­ings at Belltable, Lim­er­ick 5pm and 8pm
with Q&A with direc­tor Alan Gilse­nan after the 5pm screening

Wednes­day 19 June Screen­ing at Queen’s Film The­atre, Belfast at 8:30pm
(as part of the Docs Ire­land 2024 festival)

Mon­day 3 June Screen­ing at Mountshan­non Arts Fes­ti­val, East Clare at 5:30pm

May Diary

Mon­day 20 May – A spe­cial Encore screen­ing at the IFI, Dublin at 6:30pm
fol­lowed by a Q&A with Alan Gilse­nan and Tomás Hardi­man, hosted by archivist and broad­caster Catri­ona Crowe.

book tick­ets

April Diary

Direc­tor Alan Gilse­nan and pro­ducer Tomás Hardi­man, pic­tured at the IFTAs with the award for the George Mor­ri­son Fea­ture Doc­u­men­tary 2024 for their film The Days of Trees.

Sat­ur­day 20 April – IFTA awards 2024. WIN­NER – George Mor­ri­son Fea­ture Doc­u­men­tary category.

Fri­day 19 April – Opens at Pálás, Gal­way. A Q&A with Tomás Hardi­man and Alan Gilse­nan, mod­er­ated by Ruairí McK­ier­nan fol­lows the screen­ing on Fri­day 19

Sun­day 14 April – A Q&A with Alan Gilse­nan and Tomás Hardi­man, hosted by Bren­dan O’Connor (RTÉ) fol­lows the 17:40 screen­ing at the IFI

Sat­ur­day 13 April, 11am – Tomás Hardi­man and Alan Gilse­nan talk about The Days of Trees with Bren­dan O’Connor on his RTÉ Radio 1 show (33mins approx). Lis­ten back on RTE​.ie or lis­ten on Apple Podcasts

Fri­day 12 April – opens at the IFI

Syn­op­sis

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.

Sat­ur­day 20 April – IFTA awards 2024. WIN­NER – George Mor­ri­son Fea­ture Doc­u­men­tary category.

Wed 17 April

Alan Gilse­nan talks about The Days of Trees with Gemma Creagh on the Film Ire­land pod­cast 47mins approx

Sat 13 April

Tomás Hardi­man and Alan Gilse­nan talk about The Days of Trees with Bren­dan O’Connor on his RTÉ Radio 1 show. Lis­ten on RTE​.ie 33mins approx

Fri 12 April

Irish Exam­iner 4 star review

Alan Gilse­nan on The Days of Trees – Paul Whit­ing­ton writes in The Irish Inde­pen­dent

Thur 11 April 2024

RTÉ Arena 4.5 star review (review starts at 23:52)

Sat 18 Novem­ber 2023

The story behind the mak­ing of the film in The Irish Times

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The Days of Trees com­pletes a loose tril­ogy of films which also includes Meet­ings with Ivor and The Meet­ing