Member spotlight

The Picture House (Wexford Film Society)

The Picture House (Wexford Film Society) celebrated its 30^th anniversary last month with a screening of the Harold Lloyd 1923 silent comedy classic Safety Last!.

Screening out of Wexford Arts Centre, every Picture House season showcases the best of contemporary world cinema – with regular classics and surprise titles adding extra flavour to the programme. They also have a real commitment to celebrating local film talent, best seen in their annual Fellowship award and frequent guests.

To mark their 30th anniversary, we’re delighted to highlight their work in this month’s member spotlight. Many thanks to chair Stephen Eustace for writing up this great history of the film society.

The Picture House became the second incarnation of a Wexford Film Society in 1995, with the original club running in Wexford town from the mid 1970’s to the mid 1980’s. After a near decade gap, a group of film enthusiasts, which included a couple of members from the original committee, got together to form The Picture House. The first Chairman was Barrie Dowdall, who would go on to direct the 2020 docu-drama film Violet Gibson: The Irish Woman Who Shot Mussolini, which starred Olwen Fouéré.

The first season kicked off in the Westgate Heritage Centre with Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colours: Blue on January 16^th 1995. Because the Westgate Centre was a small venue (fewer than 100 seats) and that first season proved successful, the club moved to the Wexford Arts Centre (120 seats) for season two where we’ve remained ever since.

The Early Years

From season two in the autumn of 1995, The Picture House settled into weekly screenings from November to March/April. The reason for the late start is due to the Wexford Opera Festival dominating the cultural scene in the town every October. Having started out on Monday nights for season one, season two switched to Wednesday nights, with Tuesday nights getting a trial run for season three. Tuesday proved the winner and there hasn’t been a change since.

Having previously hosted the Federation of Irish Film Societies’ (now access>CINEMA) National Viewing Sessions with the original film society in Wexford in 1983, The Picture House hosted the 18^th N.V.S. in March 1996 in White’s Hotel and did so again in association with access>CINEMA in September 2018 in Arc Cinema.

Films were shown for the first few years by 16mm, using two projectors, before transitioning to DVD projection at the end of the 1990s. In recent years, we receive our films digitally and we find this works very well.

The Fellowship

In 2011 The Picture House started an annual Fellowship award, where a Wexford person who has distinguished themselves in the world of film would be recognised. In 2019 the prize was renamed the Dan O’Herlihy Fellowship Award to mark the 100^th anniversary of the birth of the Wexford-born Oscar-nominated actor.

Recipients over the years include screenwriters Billy Roche (The Eclipse) and John Banville (Albert Nobbs), actors Gary Lydon (The Banshees of Inisherin) and Pádraic Delaney (The Wind that Shakes the Barley), production designers John Paul Kelly (Stan & Ollie), Anna Rackard (Love and Friendship) and Emma Lowney (An Cailín Ciúin), and producer John Wallace (LOLA).

Last year the Fellowship was presented to Adrian Conway who won an IFTA for Best Sound on Michael Kiniorns’ The Sparrow, which was screened last December.

And on our 30^th anniversary night, the 2025 Fellowship was awarded to veteran local film critic – and long time member of The Picture House and the original Wexford Film Society – Jimmy Lacey.

Guests

When possible, we like to have at least one screening per season where filmmakers attend. The Fellowship recipient often fits that bill, but over the years we’ve been delighted to have been joined by some wonderful filmmakers who enrich screenings for our members.

In 2015 ,the legendary John Boorman attended to talk about his career in a season where we screened two of his films, Deliverance and Queen and Country. Two years later for the screening of Viva, we had director Paddy Breathnach and screenwriter Mark O’Halloran. Also, we’ve previously had Bob Quinn (Budawanny) and Ken Wardrop (His & Hers).

This season, Wexford-born BAFTA-winning producer Shirley O’Connor flew over especially from London to attend our screening of her film Earth Mama. She even agreed to our request to bring her BAFTA award.

We also like to screen short films by local filmmakers or shorts with a Wexford connection. Many careers begin with short films and we’ve seen many examples of that, such as Wexford actress turned director Laura Way who came into us with her first short film Sugar Stick in 2009 and now she’s a successful director of hit TV dramas such as Maxine, The Serial Killer’s Wife and the recent Dead and Buried. Also, four-time IFTA winning actress Charlie Murphy (a 2018 Fellowship recipient) first came to our attention when we had her in with a student short film she directed.

Earlier this season at our programme launch, Viko Nikci (director and co-writer) and Wexford’s Eoin Colfer (co-writer) attended for the screening of their short film Songbird.

All-time Top 20 list

From day one we’ve always invited members to score each film (using the same scoring system used by ‘access’ at screening days) and to mark our 30^th anniversary we revealed our top twenty highest scoring films over the three decades.

Cinema Paradiso (Season 7) 94.67
Viva (Season 23) 93.33
His & Hers (Season 17) 92.58
The Diving Bell & the Butterfly (Season 15) 92.57
This Other Eden (Season 17) 91.66
To Kill a Mockingbird (Season 22) 91.53
Wild Tales (Season 22) 91.14
Capernaum (Season 26) 90.91
Le Brio (Covid screening) 90.79
Untouchable (Season 19) 90.78
Rose (Season 29) 90.77
Les Miserables (Covid screening) 90.63
Land of Mine (Season 24) 90.45
Kind Hearts and Coronets (Season 24) 90.23
Pride (Season 21) 89.83
Dog Day Afternoon (Season 27) 89.36
Rise (Season 28) 89.29
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (Season 28) 89.13
Rosalie Blum (Season 25) 88.51
Safety Last! (Season 29) 88.17

Thankfully, The Picture House is very well supported with sold out membership every season. We have a programme launch night every year, three weeks before the first film of the season, where 80% of the memberships available are claimed with the remaining memberships usually sold in the intervening weeks between the launch and the first film. Obviously, not every member is available to come for every screening, which allows space for non-members to come as guests at €8 per film.

When programming, we traditionally like to include two classic films and one documentary every season. And we’ve always had a ‘Surprise Film’ as the final film of a season.

Committee

The current committee consists of Stephen Eustace, Annie Mulligan, Mary Moore, Finola Costello, Paul Sills, Anne O’Reilly, Ryan Kelly and Sinead McGlinchey.

The Picture House (Wexford Film Society)

Wexford Arts Centre,

Wexford

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