NEBELUNG (1978)
A Derry classroom becomes an unlikely setting for this uncanny experimental film by Terence McDonald and Gerry Wills. A Derry teacher turned filmmaker transforms a classroom in his school into a claustrophobic hallucination. Created over two Sunday afternoons this award winning film stars a fellow teacher and local pupils. Terence McDonald and Gerry Wills have worked together on several films; with Nebelung they achieved international success demonstrating their flare weaving this darker postmodern tale of the anxious reactions of a German teacher triggered by an old photograph.
Terence McDonald (1926–2001) was a teacher, film historian, film collector and a pioneering amateur filmmaker from Derry. He made 35 films in his lifetime covering a wide range of themes such as mental health, travelling theatre, and portraits of his home town, Derry. His playful fiction films often pay homage to classic cinema moments from Peyton Place to Potemkin, from Chaplin to Jacques Tati. Terence McDonald undertook all aspects of production - filming, sound recording and editing and produced a body of remarkably sophisticated work. This film is courtesy of his son, Peter McDonald and held in the IFI Irish Film Archive.
Director: Terence McDonald
Duration: 10 minutes
Suggested credit: Nebelung (1978) Courtesy of IFI Irish Film Archive, with kind permission of Peter McDonald
Licensed by The British Film Institute