Poignant short film Clodagh shows ‘how art can change people’, says director Portia A Buckley Oscar-longlisted film captures powerful moment someone’s life is changed ‘by seeing a form of artistic expression’.
Clodagh, co-written and directed by Portia A Buckley with her husband and creative partner Michael Lindley, tells the story of Mrs Kelly (Bríd Ní Neachtain), a woman working for the church who also teaches Irish dance to local girls.
One of the most powerful aspects of the film, she said, was to show how “art can change people, and witnessing people who have never changed their lives to be profoundly affected by seeing a form of artistic expression”.
She added that, in hindsight, she and Lindley realised that they had made a film about a child who “turns someone’s life upside down for the better”, which they themselves were experiencing at the time.
A moving short film currently longlisted for the Academy Awards depicts a test of faith and morals set in a rural Irish village.
