Ireland, 2011
Director: Thaddeus O’Sullivan; screenplay: Antoine O’Flatharta; cinematography: John Christian Roselund; editing: Dermot Diskin; production design: Anna Rackard; costumes: Judith Williams; music: Nicholas Hooper; casting: Amelia Rowan; producer: Jackie Larkin; production company: Newgrange Pictures; Irish location: Co. Tipperary; running time: 90’
Cast: Martin Sheen, Stephen Rea, Trystan Gravelle, Marcella Plunkett, Tom Hickey, Amy Huberman, Ruth McCabe, Gary Lydon, Donal O’Kelly, Joey O’Sullivan
Synopsis
Daniel Barry, parish priest of Borrisokane, Co. Tipperary, feels like the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time. He has nothing in common with his parishioners and secretly feels he has lost his vocation. When forced by his Bishop to start a fund-raising campaign, he attempts to reconcile his passion for film with his duty through the creation of the Stella Cinema. But he faces plenty of opposition: from the Bishop and a number of influential parishioners, who see films a source of moral corruption; from locals; and ultimately from his own crisis of conscience. The story of the conflict between love and duty, hope and faith, Stella Days encapsulates the dilemma of Ireland in the mid-1950s – on the cusp of the modern but still clinging to the traditions of Church and a cultural identity forged in very different times.