Eileen Leahy
Today (Pom Boyd, 2009) as a Response to Adam and Paul (Lenny Abrahamson, 2004)
Year: 2014
Keywords:
Adam and Paul, community film, Lenny Abrahamson, national cinema, Pom Boyd, Today
Information:
Institution:
Trinity College Dublin
(at time of presentation)
Eileen Leahy received a PhD in Film Studies from Trinity College in early 2014, which she completed with an IRC scholarship. She has also studied at Dublin City University and Liberties College Dublin. She is involved in various media, art and community related events.
Publication:
Text of '"Today" as a Response ...' (doc)
See also:
n/a
Abstract:
Today is a community film made by writer/director Pom Boyd in collaboration with a group of drug users participating in a RADE (Recovery through Art, Drama and Education) cultural programme. This paper examines how the film can be read as a response to, or dialogue with, Abrahamson’s Adam and Paul in its representation of drug use and its construction of an alienating urban space. The paper looks at how Today uses a variety of intersecting narratives relating to a number of characters who wander through Dublin’s inner city. It shows that the film constructs the city from the vantage point of its inhabitants, as a site of possibility, where connections are forged and maintained through culture and social engagement.
In this way the relationship between community film and national cinema is investigated and the paper questions whether communities dialogue with their stereotyping by mainstream representation or appropriate these tropes and remake them for themselves.