Life's a Breeze

Three separate stories all concern the relationships between adult children, their somewhat distant parent (or parents), and each other. Each of the three parts takes place in the present, and each in a different country. Father is set in the Northeast U.S., Mother in Dublin, Ireland, and Sister Brother in Paris, France. The film is a series of character studies, quiet, observational and non-judgmental. A comedy, but interwoven with threads of melancholy.

Jimmy Rabbitte, just a thick-ya out of school, gets a brilliant idea: to put a soul band together in Barrytown, his slum home in north Dublin. First he needs musicians and singers: things slowly start to click when he finds three fine-voiced females virtually in his back yard, a lead singer (Deco) at a wedding, and, responding to his ad, an aging trumpet player, Joey "The Lips" Fagan.

Fresh out of prison, Git rescues a former best friend (now living with Git's girlfriend) from a beating at the hands of loan sharks. He's now in trouble with the mob boss, Tom French, who sends Git to Cork with another debtor, Bunny Kelly, to find a guy named Frank Grogan, and take him to a man with a friendly face at a shack across a bog. It's a tougher assignment than it seems: Git's a novice, Bunny's prone to rash acts, Frank doesn't want to be found (and once he's found, he has no money), and maybe Tom's planning to murder Frank, which puts Git in a moral dilemma. Then, there's the long-ago disappearance of Sonny Mulligan. What's a decent and stand-up lad to do?

After a chance encounter, a Dubliner is stalked by a murderous facsimile of himself.

In a working-class quarter of Dublin, 'Bimbo' Reeves gets laid off from his job and, with his redundancy payout, buys a van and sells fish and chips with his buddy, Larry. Due to Ireland's surprising success at the 1990 FIFA World Cup, their business starts off well, but the relationship between the two friends soon becomes strained as Bimbo behaves more like a typical boss.

In this true story, Veronica Guerin is an investigative reporter for an Irish newspaper. As the drug trade begins to bleed into the mainstream, Guerin decides to take on and expose those responsible. Beginning at the bottom with addicts, Guerin then gets in touch with John Traynor, a paranoid informant. Not without some prodding, Traynor leads her to John Gilligan, the ruthless head of the operation, who does not take kindly to Guerin's nosing.

When yet another anniversary passes without a marriage proposal from her boyfriend, Anna decides to take action. Aware of a Celtic tradition that allows women to pop the question on Feb. 29, she plans to follow her lover to Dublin and ask him to marry her. Fate has other plans, however, and Anna winds up on the other side of the Emerald Isle with handsome, but surly, Declan -- an Irishman who may just lead Anna down the road to true love.

Meet Mark. A daydreamer who has lived with hearing loss for his whole life. As his condition deteriorates, Mark must listen to his past and face the present, in order to move forward with his life. Sometimes loss doesn't mean lost. At a routine checkup with his lifelong audiologist, Mark is presented with a hearing aid and with a choice. Between the torment from his childhood - and his stigma around wearing the hearing aid - he lashes out. But he remembers his young self, loving and loved; along with the care his late mother showed him. Through courage, he is able to connect with her; as she guides him through this tumultuous time in his life. He realises he can either continue to shut himself off from the world, or open up and begin to accept himself for who he really is.

Mick and Kev, teen Irish lads, are at the shore, throwing rocks at empty cans, drinking cider. Mick's the pushy one, engaging Kev in a game of mumbly peg, his hand on top of Kev's, fingers splayed. As Mick moves the knife between their fingers, a train is heard approaching. What's Mick's purpose?

Set in Dublin in 1967, the story of feisty woman, who along with her seven children, learns to cope with adversity after the unexpected death of her husband.

Margot's overwhelming experience of miscarriage.

Sam the white-washer pines for the affluent Lindy, but she has dumped him in favor of another. Sam finds a large sum of money, and goes to New York to enjoy a shopping spree, buying new clothes, jewelry and a car with a driver. Back home, Lindy flips for Sam and his newfound wealth, and dumps the rival. Sam throws an engagement party where he indulges in a friendly game of cards with his former rival and another man, who unbeknownst to Sam, is a card shark.

A grieving Connecticut mother temporarily switches houses with a woman in Dublin, Ireland.

In 1920s Ireland young doctor Damien O'Donovan prepares to depart for a new job in a London hospital. As he says his goodbyes at a friend's farm, British Black and Tans arrive, and a young man is killed. Damien joins his brother Teddy in the Irish Republican Army, but political events are soon set in motion that tear the brothers apart.

A vacuum repairman moonlights as a street musician and hopes for his big break. One day a Czech immigrant, who earns a living selling flowers, approaches him with the news that she is also an aspiring singer-songwriter. The pair decide to collaborate, and the songs that they compose reflect the story of their blossoming love.

Gypo Nolan is a former Irish Republican Army man who drowns his sorrows in the bottle. He's desperate to escape his bleak Dublin life and start over in America with his girlfriend. So when British authorities advertise a reward for information about his best friend, current IRA member Frankie, Gypo cooperates. Now Gypo can buy two tickets on a boat bound for the States, but can he escape the overwhelming guilt he feels for betraying his buddy?

Set in and around the male and female toilets of a Dublin jazz bar. A drama concerning the trials and tribulations of two lowly paid toilet attendants and the people they serve.

A penniless middle-aged spinster scrapes by giving piano lessons in the Dublin of the 1950s. She makes a sad last bid for love with a fellow resident of her rundown boarding house, who imagines she has the money to bankroll the business he hopes to open.

Join Jason on a chemically enhanced trip through the streets of Dublin as he stumbles from one misguided adventure to another. Somewhere between the DJs, decks, drug busts and hilltop raves, he stumbles across a familiar face from the past, his brother Daniel. Daniel is an educated homeless heroin addict living on the streets of Dublin. The brothers haven’t seen or spoken to each other in years but over a lost weekend they reconnect and reminisce over tunes, trips, their history and their city. Two brothers living on the edge but perhaps they have more in common than they think.

After a convivial holiday dinner party, things begin to unravel when a husband and wife address some prickly issues concerning their marriage.