
Directing
'Margo Harkin is one of Ireland’s most versatile and respected filmmakers – having directed and produced fiction and documentary films for over forty years. Her work includes an invaluable chronicle of Northern Ireland’s recent political history. After graduating in Fine Art from the Ulster College of Art and Design in 1974, Harkin worked as an art teacher and community worker in socially deprived areas of Derry. She joined Field Day Theatre Company in 1980 as an Assistant Stage Manager on Brian Friel’s Translations, before going on to work as a stage designer for the company. In 1984, Harkin co-founded Derry Film & Video Workshop with Anne Crilly and Trisha Ziff delivering critical perspectives that ran counter to the censored narratives then broadcast by British and Irish television. The signal works of this period were Mother Ireland (1988), Anne Crilly’s controversial documentary about feminism and Irish republicanism, and Harkin’s own Hush-A-Bye Baby (1990), a feature drama about teenage pregnancy following the 1983 abortion referendum in Ireland. Harkin established Besom Productions in 1992 making educational films for Channel 4 but her reputation as an astute, local documentarian of injustices was soon forged through a series of highly regarded television documentaries. Her cinema films, the surf documentary Waveriders (2003), by Joel Conroy (which she produced), and Stolen (2023), about the plight of unmarried mothers in Ireland in the 20th century, provided thoroughly researched, compelling accounts of their subjects. Margo Harkin is a member of Aosdána. Her work has won countless awards and is widely taught to third-level film and media students. Spanning over four decades, Harkin’s work has consistently challenged societal narratives, giving voice to the silenced and bearing witness to the social and political upheavals that have shaped the contemporary Irish landscape. The retrospective will span across the IFI’s cinema screens, as well as online via IFI@Home, IFI International and the IFI Archive Player.' From https://ifi.ie/margo-harkin/

Stolen
2023

Eamonn McCann: A Long March
2018
The Return of Colmcille
2013

The Far Side of Revenge
2012

Bloody Sunday: A Derry Diary
2010

The Hunger Strike
2006
Ocras
2006
You Looking at Me?
2003

Looking for Lundy
2000

A Plague on Both Your Houses
1999

12 Days in July
1998

Clear the Stage
1998

NYPD Nude
1995

Hush-a-Bye Baby
1990