Q&A with Donal Foreman

Foreman tries to understand the father he hardly knew, the Irish-American political filmmaker Arthur MacCaig, who passed away in 2008, in his singular essay film. Though he was largely based in Paris, MacCaig made documentaries on the conflict in Northern Ireland—including 1979’s The Patriot Game—and left behind a vast visual archive that Foreman analyzes in search of familial affinities. Through this footage—powerful, direct images capturing the Troubles in all their complexity—Foreman comes to know his father on a more profound and moving plane. The Image You Missed is an enthralling historical exhumation that erases the boundary between the personal and the political. North American Premiere