• dir. Molly Dineen
• year. 1995
• country. UK
• run-time. 178 mins
• rating. 15

£6.00 (£4.50 conc.)

Film 5pm

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In the Company of Men is a three part observational documentary made by Molly Dineen for the BBC in the 1990s, predominately about the deployment of a group of Welsh Guards to the province of Northern Ireland. 

Ireland on Screen is our regular look at representations of Ireland and Irish subjects in film and moving image. This is our first look at Ireland, and a British controlled part of Ireland, as depicted on the British media. This screening starts our season’s focus on Northern Ireland and the impact on the UK and Ireland of the conflict there. This may be an unconventional choice in that the subjects and characters at the forefront of the film, including the filmmaker identify as British, and the action takes place in a contested Irish/British space.

Looking back at this work it introduces the issue of the border, and places the viewer there at a time when military conflict was much more active. The border has undergone substantial change since the peace process in Ireland, and is currently less visible and is crossed with greater ease. Hopefully viewing this work now will among other things allow people to think about the issues around the potential return of the border as the partition now enters the debate around the UK’s imminent departure from the European Union.

In the Company of Men is in three parts, each just under an hour long. We will show them back to back with a short interval after the second part. 

“Molly Dineen is the leading British filmmaker of her generation.”

— Mark Lawson, The Guardian