Joe Comerford
Biography
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-marginalised characters –destitute men, drug users, aimless youths, Travellers, prisoners and women in the midst of crisis pregnancies. His two cinema features Reefer and the Model (1988), a comedy-crime thriller and High Boot Benny (1993), a drama set against the backdrop of the Troubles, are both shot through with his distinctive political and social analysis. Alternating between feature films with a narrative bias, and shorts which tend towards abstract painted imagery, Comerford has declared that his longer-term objective is to tell a story by combining the two strands into a ‘painted feature’.
Personal Info
Gender
Male
Birthday
1947-12-12
Place of Birth
Dublin, Ireland
Images
Cast
Crew
High Boot Benny
19930.0 / 10
Reefer and the Model
19885.2 / 10
Down the Corner
19770.0 / 10
Withdrawal
19730.0 / 10
Waterbag
19840.0 / 10
Roadside
20080.0 / 10
Emtigon
19710.0 / 10
Traveller
19810.0 / 10
Atlantean
19840.0 / 10
Lament for Art Ó Laoghaire
19757.0 / 10
Self Portrait with Red Car
19760.0 / 10