The Image You Missed

In a faraway land called the 1970’s, US-born Paris resident Arthur MacCaig was an internationally well-known activist-filmmaker whose works were created as partisan acts of political support; which is to say: There was Good and Evil in the world, with MacCaig telling you through films like THE PATRIOT GAME (1979) what was what and why; they did things differently there and then, no doubt … Who were these people who made films that tacitly supported acts of killing for causes deemed just and worthy? In the case of Donal Foreman, this man was his father – one he barely knew; activism meant more to him than family. THE IMAGE YOU MISSED is Foreman’s attempt to understand MacCaig’s ideals-driven life and work. The stress needs to be on “try”, as his father’s films make him feel above all the abyss between them: Static-distorted images of IRA soldiers marching into a bar and telling the chanting patrons that they need everybody’s cooperation to harm and hurt the Occupier as badly as possible puzzle him above all. THE IMAGE YOU MISSED is in the truest sense of the word an essay: results are neither desired nor reached – it’s all about the process, the act of making sense, one heart’s one mind’s journey. (Olaf Möller)

In the presence of Donal Foreman.