The Cedar Lounge Revolution

Camilla Hammerich interview at Dublin City University February 8, 2014

Having enjoyed ‘Borgen’ , ‘The Killing’ and so on I found this interview quite enjoyable.

Camilla Hammerich, the producer behind hit political drama series Borgen, gave a public interview in the Helix in DCU last Thurdsay 23rd January. The event was held as part of a partnership between the DCU MA in Film and Television Studies and the Digital Biscuit festival(http://digitalbiscuit.ie/). Digital
Biscuit, an event of combined programmed talks and technology expositions held over three days from January 22-24, brought together national and international stakeholders to focus on Ireland’s capabilities in the film and television sectors.

Ms. Hammerich, producer at DR Fiction, Denmark’s acclaimed television development and production studio behind other hit shows such as The Killing, gave a compelling and entertaining interview with Dr. Roddy Flynn, describing the creative process behind the making of Borgen and the various political debates which it has both reflected and inspired in Denmark. The event was attended by students, academics, film producers and Borgen fans, and included a lively Q+A session, in which former Fine Gael politician Mary Banotti drew some interesting parallels between Borgen’s subplots and her own experiences in Irish politics.

Borgen follows the exploits of Birgitte Nyborg (Sidse Babett Knudsen), a fictional Danish politician, who rises through the political ranks to enter the office of Prime Minister while dealing with a range of personal battles.The series also gives an insight in to the face-off between politics and the media. Before Christmas, its final season ended on BBC4 to wide critical acclaim.

The event was organised by Dr. Debbie Ging from the School of Communications and was funded by the DCU Educational Trust

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Winter Soldier January 31, 2013

Winter Soldier consists of footage of testimony given by Vietnam veterans of the routine atrocities they observed and committed.

In 1971 Vietnam Veterans Against the War invited returning soldiers to go to Detroit and speak out about the war crimes they had committed and witnessed while stationed there. The Winter film collective realised the historical importance of the event and documented it, creating Winter Soldier. The documentary was barely seen by audiences until was finally released to American cinemas in 2005. Many choking back tears as they spoke, veterans (including former Presidential candidate John Kerry) revealed shocking and officially sanctioned participation in horrific war crimes and acts of violence including the destruction of entire villages, the torture and rape of civilians, as well as executions of POWs.

Harrowing, chilling, and ultimately tragic, it’s a portrayal of how easily the dark side of human nature can be brought out.

This is being shown in the IFI on the 1st , 2nd and 3rd of Feb.
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All this Scandinavian drama, really good ? or is it the subtitles? January 21, 2013

It was a while before the recent spate of Scandinavian television shows made their way to me. . . and then last Summer I was given a loan of the first season of The Killing (Forbrydelsen) and it was superb. The lead character Sarah Lund played by Sofie Gråbøl was just brilliant with her awkwardness, total dedication to her job at the cost of family and personal relationships. The characters, politics , twists and the especially the concentration on the victims family made the first series one of my favourite shows ever.
Season Two was excellent also and again Season 3 was brilliant too, although the ending divided people.

Then ‘The Bridge’ was watched over the Christmas. Again an excellent series with some wonderful characters and again it was the main female character Saga Norén that had me enthralled.
Have just finished watching the First series of Borgen and thought it was superb and cant wait to start catching up with season 2 (which I’ve recorded).

I’ve watched a few other foreign series such as the French one ‘Spiral’ too and again it was good. …..
….I cant help wondering though if the subtitles make the shows better. By that you have to give them 100% attention, you have to watch them, you cant be cooking or ironing or tweeting or the like at the same time in case you miss something. Which of course you can do with series in English. They take all your attention and you get totally engrossed.

RTE Christmas Show 1970 December 24, 2012

A mix of gags and songs from the 1970 Christmas show. Actually not as bad as I thought it would be.

EUscreen October 3, 2012

A pure treasure trove of Archive Television footage from around the EU. So not alone is there archived RTE material but lots of stuff from the BBC as well and of course lots of French, Danish , Italian, Spanish etc Material too http://www.euscreen.eu/index.html

A few that caught my eye
BBC in Ballyfermot 1968 Contraception – Catholic women give their views

From 1968 A ‘7 Days’ programme looking at the treatment of unmarried mothers in Ireland.

Life Without Work Ireland 1975

Hopes from the 1978 Budget

The First Dáil and
“In The Summer After The Rising, The Country Changed”

From 1968 a Documentary “Brendan Behan’s Dublin” April 2, 2012

From 1968, a Documentary about Dublin  “Brendan Behan’s Dublin” , includes plenty of footage of Dublin back then. Needless to say plenty of footage from pubs and the  Guinness brewery. The Behans house,  The Zoo, Smithfield, The Abbey and lots more are covered too.

Mary McAleese Exemplifies the James Connolly Tradition of Ireland Meaning Nothing to Me without its People December 27, 2011

Three guesses who said that on what can only be described as the stupidest TV show of this – or indeed any other – year.