Celtic Utopia

This music documentary by directing duo Dennis Harvey and Lars Lovén is an energetic exploration of a cultural renaissance in Ireland, a hundred years after independence. The film follows a new generation of alternative folk musicians, including Lankum, The Deadlians, Poor Creature, Negro Impacto and The Mary Wallopers, who are shaking up and redefining traditional music. 

The melancholic sounds of their alternative folk are, in their own words, intended to “scare priests and politicians”. With this unconventional music, they tell the story of a country that has undergone enormous social, political and economic changes. The sympathetic Celtic Utopia shows a post-colonial society struggling with its heritage, with Irish folk music undeniably carrying both an oppressed past and a bright future.

Celtic Utopia premiered this summer in the Critics' Week section of the 78th Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland, where it won the Critics' Week Award. It is the second feature film directed by both Dennis Harvey and Lars Lovén. The linguistically sensitive Celtic Utopia is part of the Memmetaal programme line, but this super-musical, rousing film would certainly not have been out of place in Sounds & Cinema.