Ireland / Canada,
1998, 120 min
Shown in 1999
CREDITS
- dir
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Paul Quinn
- prod
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Nicolas Clermont, Philip King
- scr
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Paul Quinn
- cam
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Declan Quinn
- editor
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Glenn Berman
- cast
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Aidan Quinn, James Caan, Stephen Rea, John Cusack, Colm Meaney, Moya Farrelly
- source
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Sony Pictures Classics, 550 Madison Ave., 8th Fl, New York, NY 10022. FAX: 212-833-8844
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COMMENTS
Aidan Quinn and Paul Quinn in person.
OTHER
Based on a story the Quinn brothers’ mother heard as a girl growing up in Ireland, This Is My Father is a family affair on both sides of the camera. Written and directed by Paul Quinn, starring his brother Aidan and coproduced and photographed by their brother Declan, This Is My Father tells of the importance of family and roots. James Caan plays Kieran Johnson, a disgruntled Chicago high school history teacher. When Kieran’s class cannot trace their family trees back even one generation, their failure inspires him to travel to Ireland in search of his own family history and the truth about the father he never knew. He is helped in his quest by a garrulous bed-and-breakfast owner (Colm Meany) and his aging fortune-telling mother, who reluctantly recounts the now legendary story of Kieran’s mother and her affair as a young girl with the fiery Kieran O’Day (Aidan Quinn). Alternating between past and present, This Is My Father tells a lyrically tragic tale of doomed love and secrets powerful enough to haunt generations. Filmed on location, it is also a gorgeous valentine to the Irish countryside, which appears as tempestuous and sexy as the two illicit lovers at the heart of the tale.
—Jennie Yabroff
FACTOID #4
2006 New Italian Cinema tributee Marco Belocchio’s debut film Fists in the Pocket screened at the Tenth San Francisco International Film Festival in 1966.
