Translating the Transnational into Film: Relational Constructions of People and Place in Treasa O'Brien's Town of Strangers

Treasa O’Brien’s 2018 film Town of Strangers begins with a literal call for auditions. As O’Brien drives through one of Ireland’s most ethnically diverse rural towns, she invites “everyone in Gort,” County Galway, to come and “tell us your dreams, your memories, any gossip, lies” in any language. The ensuing experimental documentary reveals a montage of languages, stories, ethnicities, religions, relationships, and experiences in and across natural and built environments. These montages weave in meta-critical elements of filmmaking that together raise questions about how to translate diverse perspectives into a representation of Gort. Sociological analyses from scholars such as Olivia Sheringham and Michael Woods examine Brazilian migration to Gort since Sean Duffy Meat Exports Ltd. established a facility there in 1999. Sheringham and Woods separately show how Irish and Brazilian communities in Gort construct identity and build national and transnational networks. While such scholarly approaches offer valuable insights into shifting cultural identities in rural Ireland, Town of Strangers involves the community and built infrastructure in real and imagined scenarios through which the people and place co-create an unfolding narrative of the region. Drawing on ecocritical and ecomedia theories, this paper explores how the candid interviews, cameos, and meta-critical reflections on film production engage the film’s participants in actively representing their identities, cultures, and material environments. Heeding these collective and relational meaning-making processes highlights arts-based and creative methods in Town of Strangers that revise and expand understandings of and approaches to culture and environment in twenty-first century Ireland.