To mark World Down Syndrome Day 2025, Run of the Mill and Arcade Film are delighted to premiere their new short, Connections, a poetry film resulting from a collaboration from Mark Smith and poet Colm Keegan. Exploring the past, the present and the power of opportunity, the poem has powerful themes about the power of support, of being given chances and opportunities and platforms that didn’t exist in the past.
Directed by Aisling Byrne and produced by Killian Coyle, the film was made in association with Arcade Film.
The idea for the project came after Mark had been involved in making a triptych of poetry films across Covid. The first was a piece featuring Eavan Boland’s famine poem Quarantine (commissioned by Culture Night 2020), the second a poetry film based on her poem Outside History (commissioned by St Patrick’s Festival, 2021) and the third was an Abbey Theatre Dear Ireland Commission, a poem Aisling wrote with Mark, called Vulnerable.
This ignited Mark’s inner poet! He also felt very connected to themes of history and the famine, influenced by both Boland’s work and his own background studying Anthropology at Maynooth University as part of their since lapsed Inclusive Learning Initiative. He wanted to be supported to make his own original poem connecting with this history.
Run of the Mill proposed a collaboration with Colm Keegan, facilitating sessions between the pair. They went for walks and visited the famine workhouse and other historic sites locally and Mark began to fire connections between this history and his own experience of opportunity and education, having come of age in a different time and with lots of support. Colm began to pen from their sessions and Mark’s words and his and this poem was the result.
Featuring Mark reading the poem himself, the concept for the short film was devised by Mark and Colm, with Maynooth providing like the perfect location – offering the texture of old architecture and also the meaningful site of Mark’s graduation.
Connections was funded by The Arts Council of Ireland / An Chomhairle Ealaíon, Creative Ireland, with support from Arcade Film, St. Patrick’s College Maynooth, Maynooth University and Kildare County Council.
I listen
I see
The past it’s in me
There’s a lot of connections
See here for more from Ben’s blog, Poetic Licence.
