I Could Read the Sky is a 1999 Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

/UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 film directed by Nichola Bruce. It is based upon a photographic novel by Timothy O'Grady and Steve Pyke

Steve Pyke

Steve Pyke MBE is a British photographer living in New York City. From 1981 to 1984, he worked for diverse publications including The Face and NME. Pyke has been a staff photographer at The New Yorker since 2004.-Life and career:...

, which concerns the Irish experience of emigration and exile. It has been described as an "innovative, melancholic, and deeply moving film"

Plot

The film concerns an old Irish immigrant living in London who is looking back over his life. He recalls his early life in the west of Ireland, his first love, emigrating to England, searching for his brother Joe, who disappeared after he emigrated several years previously. His marriage and wife's later depth is also remembered.

Cast

• Dermot Healy
  Dermot Healy
  Dermot Healy is an Irish novelist, playwright, and poet. He has won the Hennessy Award , the Tom Gallon Award , and the Encore Award...
  
   as the old man
• Maria Doyle Kennedy
  Maria Doyle Kennedy
  Maria Doyle Kennedy is an award-winning Irish actress and singer. She is possibly best known for her roles as Natalie, in cult film The Commitments, Queen Katherine of Aragon in the award winning The Tudors and as the title character's wife Frances in The General.-Early life:She is an honours...
  
   as Maggie
• Stephen Rea
  Stephen Rea
  Stephen Rea is an Irish film and stage actor. Rea has appeared in high profile films such as V for Vendetta, Michael Collins, Interview with the Vampire and Breakfast on Pluto...
  
   as PJ Doran
• Brendan Coyle
  Brendan Coyle
  -Early life and family:Coyle was born in Corby, Northamptonshire, to an Irish father and Scottish mother; his parents moved to Corby from Strabane, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Coyle holds Irish and British citizenship. He is the great nephew of football manager Sir Matt Busby...
  
   as Francie
• Liam O'Maonlai as Joe

Also

• Pádraic Breathnach
  Pádraic Breathnach
  Pádraic Breathnach, Irish actor, performer, writer and television producer, born c. 1950.A fluent Irish speaker, Pádraic grew up in Carna, Connemara. As a student in NUI Galway, he was deeply involved with An Cumann Drámaíochta and Dramsoc, where he teamed up with Ollie Jennings in a series of...
  
  
• Mick Lally
  Mick Lally
  Michael 'Mick' Lally was an Irish stage, film and television actor. He departed from a teaching career for acting during the 1970s...
  
  

Production

The film was based on a photographic novel of the same name by Timothy O'Grady and Steve Pyke

Steve Pyke

Steve Pyke MBE is a British photographer living in New York City. From 1981 to 1984, he worked for diverse publications including The Face and NME. Pyke has been a staff photographer at The New Yorker since 2004.-Life and career:...

. O'Grady lived for some time in the west of Ireland and was interested in the stories of Irish immigrants. In the author's words:

"I Could Read The Sky is a novel which tells its story through words and photographs. The story is that of an Irish emigrant struggling to possess his life in acts of memory. He is old. He is alone. He is lying in bed at night in the darkness remembering a life of dislocation, of loss, of descent into madness and of redemption through music and through the love of a woman. Some of the time he is remembering on prose and some of the time in pictures. Neither is meant to illustrate the other. They are distinct acts of memory in their own right. The act of remembering itself becomes a way of completing his life."

The film was directed by Nichola Bruce, and was her first feature film. She had previously made documentaries and experimental films. The film has an unusual appearance, composed almost completely of images of memories, twisted and distorted to various degrees. The music for the film was composed by Irish sean nós

Sean Nós

Sean Nós refers to "old style" Irish song and dance, which are discussed under:* Sean-nós song, Irish traditional song.* Sean-nós dance, Irish traditional dance.* Sean-nós dance in America, Irish traditional singing and dancing in the "old style" in America...

 singer and member of Afro Celt Sound System

Afro Celt Sound System

The Afro Celt Sound System is a musical group which fuses modern electronic dance rhythms with traditional Irish and West African music...

, Iarla Ó Lionáird

Iarla Ó Lionáird

Iarla Ó Lionáird is an Irish singer and producer well known for his involvement with the Afro Celt Sound System. He is one of the most prominent artists of the Irish Sean nós singing tradition, and has released three solo albums through Real World Records, the third being Invisible Fields,...

. Sinéad O'Connor

Sinéad O'Connor

Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor is an Irish singer-songwriter. She rose to fame in the late 1980s with her debut album The Lion and the Cobra and achieved worldwide success in 1990 with a cover of the song "Nothing Compares 2 U"....

, Noel Hill and Liam O'Maonlai also contributed to the soundtrack.