The Laughing Boy (An Buachaill Geal Gáireach)

A trilingual feature documentary directed by Alan Gilsenan, The Laughing Boy (An Buachaill Geal Gáireach) is the remarkable and untold story of a song.

The film centers on the untold story of Irish song called "The Laughing Boy", written by the Irish writer and activist Brendan Behan in memory of Michael Collins, leader of the Irish independence movement. In a narrative that interweaves the tragic and bloody birth-pangs of both modern Ireland and modern Greece, poet Theo Dorgan uncovers the truth of the story behind the song, traces its origins in the Irish revolution through to its extraordinary afterlife as "To Yelasto Paidi", a powerful left-wing anthem of resistance in Greece in the late Sixties.

Traversing national contexts, the film reveals how these seemingly distinct independence movements became bound together by something profound and transcendent – the power of a song.

The screening will be introduced by producer Kathryn Baird and Professor Gail Holst-Warhaft, Adjunct Professor in the Departments of Classics, Comparative Literature and Near Eastern Studies at Cornell, who served as an advisor on the film.

The Laughing Boy is also presented in conjunction with a screening of Costa-Gavras's Z (1969) — a pulse-pounding political thriller loosely based on the 1963 assassination of Greek left-wing activist Gregoris Lambrakis — on Friday, October 25 at 6pm.