John Connors’ The Black Guelph to be available to purchase online

Cluster Fox films has announced that Dublin set crime-drama The Black Guelph, directed by John Connors, will be available to buy from June 7 online.

The film, co-written by Connors and Tiernan Williams, premiered at Germany’s Oldenburg Film Festival, where it won Best Film and Best Actor for Graham Earley.

It will be available to purchase from Morphed.tv.

The Black Guelph tells of Canto, a small time drug dealer who desperately needs to get off the streets of inner-city Dublin. Then Dan, Canto’s absent father, returns hoping to be reconciled with his past – before something much worse takes control of both of their lives.

The film beckons viewers to reflect on the human spirit's incredible resilience and the perpetual war between good and evil. It's a deeply emotional journey, delving critically into societal norms, the long-lasting effects of childhood traumas, and toxic masculinity's destructive consequences.

John Connors, the first Irish Traveller (Mincéir) Director, is also an Irish actor, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, playwright and human rights activist who has broken new ground for his minority community in Ireland.

He is best known for his role as Patrick Ward in the Irish crime drama series’ Love/Hate and for Cardboard Gangsters for which he won a Best Actor IFTA in 2018. John’s directorial debut was in 2016 where he co-directed and presented ‘John Connors, The Travellers’, winning the 2018 IFTA for best documentary series.

Reflecting on The Black Guelph, Connors commented: “This genre has to be a completely authentic or the audience doesn’t buy in. I'm from the most deprived anti-social council estate in Ireland, called Darndale. I know the world I inhabit.

"I know the characters, and I know how they operate. How they talk and behave, but more importantly I know how they think and feel. I’ve seen generations ripped apart by drugs, gang violence and an inability to deal with the underlying issues that are driving the entirety of this social deprivation. This film tries to shine a light on these issues and I bring my own personal experience to telling this story that I believe should be heard.”

Tiernan Williams, producer and co-writer, said "I grew up in the shadow of the 1980s North Dublin heroin epidemic, in a community at the centre of the problem. I’ve seen families torn apart by the ravages of drugs and seen good people transformed into real life monsters. I know this world so very well, the gangs, the vice, the violence.

“The Black Guelph is a dramatic representation of these experiences," he continued, adding, "the fragility of the human condition, the subtle nuances and the transformational complexities that lie within my urban sub-culture. It’s my way of telling the stories of those forgotten ghosts from my past, those forced now to live in the shadows of my unconscious.”

The film will be available for purchase here.

Watch the trailer for The Black Guelph below: