Irish Spotlight

Seamus Heaney and the Music of What Happens

Born into a farming family in rural Northern Ireland, Seamus Heaney became the finest poet of his generation and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. Not inconsequentially, his career coincided with one of the bloodiest political upheavals of the 20th century, the Troubles in Northern Ireland. In this absorbing documentary, Heaney’s wife, Marie, and their children gather six years after his death in 2013 to reflect on their family life by reading some of the poems he wrote for them. The voice of Heaney himself, pulled from voluminous recordings, joins them in this tour of his life, his art, and his beloved Irish landscapes. Director Adam Low’s film is resonant with grace and awe for the words one man left behind.

Ireland 2019 (88 minutes)

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