Cinema nostalgia takes centre stage in RTÉ Easter schedule

Laura Slattery

After 165 interviews and eight weeks of shooting, production company Planet Korda's call for Irish people to share their memories of their cinema-going pasts has been crafted into the feature-length documentary See You at the Pictures , one of the centrepieces of RTÉ's movie-themed Easter schedule.

Producer Lisa McNamee says Planet Korda was "delighted with the response" to the call. "If we had the time, we could have interviewed 500 people. We were trying to do the whole country," she says.

Directed by Jeremiah Cullinane, See You at the Pictures addresses Ireland's relationship with the big screen through the decades, covering topics such as romance, glamour and the conflict between Hollywood movie values and the religious State – expect to hear stories such as that of the local priest who put his hat over the projector whenever something he didn't quite approve of appeared on the screen.

For reminiscences of 1940s and 1950s screen encounters, McNamee says the documentary team gleaned contributions from letter campaigns and contacts with groups such as the Irish Film Institute’s Wild Strawberries cinema club for the over 55s, while to collate tales from the multiplex era, they also “spent a day in Cineworld, dragging teenagers in front of the screen”.

See You at the Pictures , which received development funding from the Irish Film Board and €105,000 from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland's Sound and Vision Fund, airs on Easter Monday as part of "Ireland at the Movies" week on RTÉ, for which the broadcaster has lined up a parade of documentaries, films and performances that "highlight the central role that cinema plays in Irish life".

As a “curtain-raiser” to the themed week, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra celebrates the work of film composer John Williams at the National Concert Hall tonight.