Holy Island

David (Conor Madden) and Rosa (Jeanne Nicole Ní Áinle) are stranded in the desolate port town of an island. While they wait in vain for a ferry to take them to the mainland, the island turns out to be a limbo between life and death. In this metaphorical purgatory, the two are forced to confront their past and their repressed memories. And so David and Rosa continue to roam the black-and-white world of the island. They encounter enigmatic characters and experience surreal moments that seem like fragments of a collective consciousness. Robert Manson's film dispenses with classic suspense and instead relies on a dreamlike, hypnotic atmosphere in which themes such as guilt and redemption are poetically staged. The surreal structure and fragmentary narrative style reflect the inner state of the protagonists—their search for identity in a world without clear orientation. "A drifting, dreamlike Irish fable of escape – with a touch of Kafka. [...] It’s an experimental piece, drifting and dreamlike – though declining to let you know if it is a good dream or a bad dream – shot in black and white, with little bursts of colour Super 8." (Peter Bradshaw, in: The Guardian)