During a seemingly typical day in a small Irish town a young girl's life is about to change for good.

Una is about to step unknowingly from childhood into adulthood in this uncanny film by Mairéad McClean. The quiet of Una’s domestic life is disrupted by a journey into adult territory and when she returns, her world has been altered forever. Way Past was shot in McClean’s home village of Beragh, using local people (non-actors) cast in the main roles, and the locations used in the film are the sites where the actual events took place some 20 years earlier. 

Mairéad McClean is an award-winning filmmaker who has produced work around the themes of memory, identity and migration. Her work disrupts and restructures events from the past highlighting the unreliability of both history and memory. Through the use of sound, still and moving image, material evidence is re-opened and re-examined and a new vantage point is created. She was born and grew up in Beragh, County Tyrone and has lived and worked for the past 25 years in London. Way Past was shown at 15 international film festivals and was awarded a Juries Special Mention at The 23rd Amiens Film Festival, France in 2003. This material is courtesy of Mairéad McClean.

Digitised as part of Unlocking Film Heritage

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Sponsored by the Northern Ireland Film and Television Council, Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Directed by Mairéad McClean

Produced by Kate Wimpress 

Cast: Brona O'Reilly, Una Brogan, Roisin McSorley, Dara McCann

Editor: Lee Beurs

Director of Photography: Eugene McVeigh

Executive Producer: Kevin McAleer

• Britain on Film
• BFI Player
• Mairéad McClean official website