For more information on the festival visit nihrf.com.

Born and raised in Kilkenny, Hubert Butler (1900-91) – once described as “Ireland’s Orwell” – is now widely considered one of the great essayists in English of the twentieth century and a forerunner of the Irish human rights movement. Proud of his Protestant heritage while still deeply committed to the Irish nation, he sought in his life and writing to ensure that Ireland would grow into an open and pluralistic society. His six volumes of essays are masterful literature in the tradition of Swift, Yeats and Shaw.

In this remarkable film, Butler’s life and work are brought to the big screen for the first time. It follows his writer’s journey from his Anglo-Irish childhood and study at Oxford; through his time in Stalinist Russia (where he worked as a teacher), Nazi Germany (where he helped expedite the escape of Jews), and interwar Yugoslavia; to his later life as a market-gardener, writer and public intellectual at Maidenhall, Co Kilkenny, where his family had lived for a century and a half.

Followed by a discussion with director Johnny Gogan, poet Chris Agee and BBC journalist Darragh Mac Intyre.

Screening in partnership with Irish Pages. irishpages.org