Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story
A 93-year-old Irish writer Edna O’Brien recounts her controversial life, novels, love affairs, and stardom through personal journals read by actress Jessie Buckley, with perspectives from writers like Gabriel Byrne and Walter Mosley.
Directed By SINÉAD O’SHEA
Starring JESSIE BUCKLEY, GABRIEL BYRNE
1 HOUR 40MINS: CERT 12A
The ICC is delighted to present a special preview screening of the documentary The Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story, before its UK Premiere on 18 April in London’s West End. Edna O’Brien was the ICC most treasured patron from 1995 until her recent death in 2024.
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with the Director Sinéad O’Shea.
Doors: 7pm; Starts: 7.30pm
Tickets: £10
Watch The Trailer :The Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story
More About Edna O’Brien:
In 1960, a young Irish woman named Edna O’Brien wrote The Country Girls, the first of a sexually-frank trilogy of novels. Though the books were banned in Ireland, O’Brien became an international literary sensation, gaining fame and notoriety through her marriage and acrimonious divorce from Ernest Gebler; publications in the New Yorker and the creation of screenplays for British and US cinema. She lived in London with her two sons where she hosted star-studded parties and conducted numerous love affairs. Her later work was inspired, at times controversially, by real life events.
This documentary portrait, completed shortly before her death last year, features extracts from her journals (read with verve by Jessie Buckley), contributions from Gabriel Byrne, Anne Enright and other luminaries, and a remarkable final interview with Edna, now aged 93 as she reflects with dignity and candour on her extraordinary life.
(Notes by Sunniva O’Flynn, Irish Film Institute – Dublin).
What The Press Say About ‘The Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story’.
“One of Ireland’s most important novelists and a woman of fierce intelligence and bravery is celebrated in Sinéad O’Shea’s thoroughly enjoyable documentary – The film speaks to Walter Mosley, Anne Enright and Andrew O’Hagan who talk insightfully about her work, and perhaps most touchingly of all with her sons Carlo and Sasha Gébler. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable and engaging study”. Peter Bradshaw The Guardian
Read Full Guardian Review Here
“This rigorously researched film has much to say about the writing… But, as you might expect with a study of such a figure, Blue Road is more remarkable for its consideration of how an extraordinary life was lived”. The Irish Times
“O’Shea has created a documentary that proclaims how important O’Brien was in the second half of the twentieth century in Ireland. This film will further her reputation and help to consolidate her position as a writer and as a citizen of the first rank even if official Ireland was incapable of perceiving it for much of her life”. Nomoreworkhorse.com
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