Joe Comerford

Joe Comerford was born in 1947 in Dublin, Ireland, graduating from the National College of Art and Design in the 1960s. In the 1970s, he began working for RTÉ, Ireland's national broadcaster, where he learned camera operating and general studio production. Two years later, he left RTÉ to make independent films. All his films share a general concern for those on the margins of what was an increasingly-affluent Irish society. His films of the 1970s and 1980s featured dysfunctional familial settings, as analogous to Ireland's political and religious conditions at the time. His early films have been described as challenging to watch, as they often do not follow a linear narrative, but move forward as a series of vignettes. Comerford has worked as an independent director in Ireland for over 50 years producing work that is distinguished by its cinematic subversion and social commentary, with a trademark twinning of film narrative and visual-aural abstraction. His films focus on socially-ma...