The Image You Missed

“The Image You Missed”  73mins: Ireland /USA/France/ UK.  (2018).

“The Image You Missed” explores the complexities of a father/son relationship. Irish filmmaker, Donal Foreman,  grapples with the legacy of his estranged father, the late American documentarian Arthur MacCaig, through MacCaig’s decades-spanning archive of the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Drawing on over 30 years of unique and never-seen-before imagery, ‘The Image You Missed’ is a documentary essay film that weaves together a history of the Northern Irish Troubles with the story of a son’s search for his father. In the process, the film creates a candid encounter between two filmmakers born into different political moments, revealing their contrasting experiences of Irish nationalism, the role of images in social struggle, and the competing claims of personal and political responsibility.

Donal Foreman’s Father, Arthur MacCaig, made political documentaries, with a particular career-long focus on the conflicts in Northern Ireland and the Basque Country. Following his death in 2008, Dónal Foreman created this award-winning feature documentary, drawing on MacCaig’s archive. 

‘The Image You Missed’ is Foreman’s second feature, after his 2013 debut ‘Out of Here’. A Dublin-based drama the Irish Times described as “profound, humorous and touching”,

His most recent award winning film “The Cry of Granuaile’ was released in 2022. 

About The Filmmaker Dónal Foreman: 

Dónal Foreman (born Dublin, 1985) is an Irish filmmaker living between New York City and Dublin. He has been making films since he was 11 years old. Since then, he has written, directed, edited and co-produced three feature films and dozens of shorts (retrospectives of which have been curated by the Irish Film Institute and Cork Film Centre.

The Irish Times has called him “one of Ireland’ most imaginative cinematic talents”, and his features have been praised in the Hollywood Reporter, Sight & Sound, the Guardian, Film Comment and Filmmaker Magazine.

At age 17, he won the title of Ireland’s Young Filmmaker of the Year. He has been nominated twice for the Irish Film & TV Academy Awards – for the Rising Star Award in 2014 and for Best Documentary in 2020 – and presented with the Discovery Award from the Dublin Film Critics Circle in 2014. His second feature, The Image You Missed, premiered at Rotterdam and has gone on to screen at over 40 festivals across 20 countries including Edinburgh, CPH:DOX and the Viennale, winning nine awards including the Grand Jury Prize at BAFICI, and receiving theatrical releases in Ireland, the UK, the US, Greece and Mexico. The Irish Times recently declared it one of the 50 best Irish films ever made. 

What the Press say about Foreman’s film ‘The Image You Missed’ 

“Superb … A wonderful film from an intriguing, restless talent …, Foreman’s new film elegantly intertwines Irish history and a study of parenthood to form an intelligent cinematic essay. ”  – Donald Clarke, The Irish Times

“Irish film-maker Donal Foreman’s marvellous, feature-length The Image You Missed works through the film archive of his own father, American documentarian Arthur MacCaig, to assemble new familial and political narratives.” – Guy Lodge The Guardian

“Foreman has … plumbed his own unique circumstance to explore deep, delicate questions of national socio-political soul-searching. … In seeking to locate an individual through his art, Foreman has demonstrated above all his own profound prowess as a maker and interrogator of images.” –  Ronan Doyle, Scannain.com.

“Poetic and poignant … Engaging and evocative … A film full of vulnerability and bravery … The profound reflections of a seasoned filmmaker.” –  Síomha McQuinn, Film Ireland