Following theatrical releases in Ireland, the UK, the US and Mexico, and screenings at over 40 festivals internationally, Donal Foreman’s feature documentary The Image You Missed is now available to rent or buy on Vimeo on Demand worldwide (excluding the U.S. and Canada).
In the Arts Council funded documentary, the Irish filmmaker grapples with the legacy of his estranged father, the late American documentarian Arthur MacCaig, through MacCaig’s decades spanning archive of the conflict in Northern Ireland, much of which has never been seen publicly before. Directed, produced and edited by Foreman over a two year period, the film was executive produced by renowned French filmmaker Philippe Grandrieux and film critic Nicole Brenez, and features an original soundtrack composed and performed by legendary Irish jazz musician Michael Buckley alongside electronic musicians Ohal Grietzer and Christopher Colm Morrin.
The Image You Missed had its world premiere at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in January, where the Hollywood Reporter singled it out as a “buzz picture” and Film Comment hailed it as “a moving and thoughtful first-person essay film.” Since then the film has gone on to win prizes at the Buenos Aires Festival of Independent Cinema (Grand Prize of the Avant-Garde Competition), and the Centre Pompidou’s Cinéma du Réel festival in Paris (Prize for Best Original Music and a Special Mention in the French Competition). The film has also screened at major international film festivals including Edinburgh, Melbourne, CPH:DOX, IndieLisboa and Lincoln Center’s Art of the Real in New York City, and received widespread critical praise from publications including the Irish Times, Film Ireland, Filmmaker Magazine, Senses of Cinema and the Brooklyn Rail.
This is Foreman’s second feature, after his 2013 debut Out of Here. A Dublin-based drama the Irish Times described as “profound, humorous and touching”, it garnered Foreman a Discovery Award from the Dublin Film Critics Circle and a nomination for the Rising Star Award at the Irish Film & TV Awards. Out of Here is also available on Vimeo on Demand, as is The Patriot Game – the seminal 1979 feature documentary debut of Foreman’s father, Arthur MacCaig.
In addition Foreman has set up a new website on Arthur’s work, which will be updated with more documents from his archive in the future, and a new website for Out of Here as well.