The Welfare of Tomás Ó Hallissy

Inspired by anthropological studies into the huge incidence of mental illness in rural Ireland in the 1960s and 1970s, The Welfare of Tomás Ó Hallissy revisits Paul Hocking and Mark McCarty's 1968 production The Village. Seen through the eyes of two American anthropologists who arrive at Dún Chaoin, a small village in the west of Ireland, to study its dying culture, the film is a portrait of a society on the brink of irreversible change. It revolves around the protagonist, Tomás, a speechless 10-year-old boy, whose life spans the cusp of the old world and the new. Meanwhile the anthropologists question their own methodology as they struggle to get beyond the opaque and ritualistic social relations that define this place as the local community mistrusts and misconstrues their intentions. (Berlinale)