Filmic Portraits of Contemporary Ireland: 2003-2018

Abstract

Since the Peace Process signed in 1994, Irish national cinema has portrayed the change of a politically violent country to a place in fast development. The films about the wars of independence and the Troubles gave place to new topics related to the current economy, globalization, recession and its problems; universal anxieties and individual subjectivity began to gain strength, obfuscating national collective matters. This doctoral research aims to examine contemporary realistic fiction films that deal with social exclusion and marginality during the Celtic Tiger and its aftermath; it intends to answer the question: how can the themes of marginality and exclusion, which are still relevant in Ireland today, be voiced through universal paradigms? How have individuals that are excluded from society been represented in the cinema and what are their relations to the place they inhabit?