Joe Comerford

Personal Info

Known For Director

Gender Male

Birthday 1947-12-12 (77 years old)

Place of Birth Dublin, Ireland

Joe Comerford

Biography

Joe Comerford was born in 1947 in Dublin, Ireland, graduating from the National College of Art and Design in the 1960s. In the 1970s, he began working for RTÉ, Ireland's national broadcaster, where he learned camera operating and general studio production. Two years later, he left RTÉ to make independent films. All his films share a general concern for those on the margins of what was an increasingly-affluent Irish society. His films of the 1970s and 1980s featured dysfunctional familial settings, as analogous to Ireland's political and religious conditions at the time. His early films have been described as challenging to watch, as they often do not follow a linear narrative, but move forward as a series of vignettes. Comerford has worked as an independent director in Ireland for over 50 years producing work that is distinguished by its cinematic subversion and social commentary, with a trademark twinning of film narrative and visual-aural abstraction. His films focus on socially-marginalised characters –destitute men, drug users, aimless youths, Travellers, prisoners and women in the midst of crisis pregnancies. His two cinema features Reefer and the Model (1988), a comedy-crime thriller and High Boot Benny (1993), a drama set against the backdrop of the Troubles, are both shot through with his distinctive political and social analysis. Alternating between feature films with a narrative bias, and shorts which tend towards abstract painted imagery, Comerford has declared that his longer-term objective is to tell a story by combining the two strands into a ‘painted feature’.

Known For

Director

2008
Roadside

as Director

1993
High Boot Benny

as Director

1988
1984
Waterbag

as Director

1981
Traveller

as Director

1977
Down the Corner

as Director

1973
Withdrawal

as Director

1971
Emtigon

as Director

Producer

1993
High Boot Benny

as Executive Producer

1984
Waterbag

as Producer

1973
Withdrawal

as Producer

1971
Emtigon

as Producer

Writer

1993
High Boot Benny

as Screenplay

1988
1984
Waterbag

as Writer

1971
Emtigon

as Writer

Camera

1984
Atlantean

as Camera Operator

1975
Lament for Art Ó Laoghaire

as Director of Photography

Editor

1977
Down the Corner

as Editor

Crew

1971
Emtigon

as Cinematography