Four city businessmen take a weekend canoeing trip through the remote Appalachian wilderness, before the area is flooded for a new dam.

Their inexperience and pride make them easy targets for hostile, inbred hillbillies, and the men all react differently to their situation as it becomes more perilous.

Directed by John Boorman, this three-time Oscar-nominated film serves as an allegory for America's experiences in Vietman.

Chosen as one of Sight & Sound's 'Best Film Books of the Year' John Boorman is one of the cinema's authentic visionaries, drawn to myths and dreams. The undisputed heir to David Lean, his films, such as Point Blank, Deliverance and Excalibur, exhibit a continual search for the truth that only art can convey. In Conclusions Boorman summarises what he has learned about the craft of film-making, and wishes to pass on to the next generation of film-makers. Into this tapestry of cinematic memories, he also weaves the story of his kith and kin, including the death of his cherished elder daughter, and an evocation of the forest of trees that he has planted as his final legacy.

'What a life! What a career!' Harold Pinter 'Boorman is one of the world's great directors, a master storyteller.' Paul Auster John Boorman is one of cinema's authentic visionaries whose travels have taken him from London in the Blitz to the pinnacle of Hollywood success: the man behind filmes such as Point Blank, Deliverance, Excalibur, Hope and Glory, and The General. Conclusions continues the story of his life that Boorman began with Adventures of a Suburban Boy and shares what has happened since its publication: films made (such as the award-winning The General) and unmade; new knowledge about the craft of film-making; and, ultimately, the story of of his kith and kin, including the death of his cherished elder daughter. Wielding a metaphorical Excalibur, Boorman's career has been a continual search for the truth that only art can convey, and this memoir shows him at his finest.

Justin Keating, son of the artist Sean Keating, attended UCD and TCD. He was a Labour Party politician (Minister for Industry 1973-77), academic, journalist, veterinary surgeon, television pioneer (as Head of Agricultural Broadcasting at RTE) and award-winning documentary filmmaker. In later life he served as Member of the European Parliament and became president of the Humanist Association. President Michael D. Higgins called him ‘a man who saw socialism as both essential and adaptable to change’. Keating introduced the first substantial legislation for the development of Ireland's oil and gas, set up the National Film Studios of Ireland at Ardmore and gave impetus to Kilkenny Design. He wrote extensively – and with opinions well ahead of his time – on the natural world, including women’s health, animal welfare, sustainable energy and ecology. ‘A well made, fit thoroughbred really striding out seems to me one of the most beautiful things on earth, on a par with an orchid or porpoise.’ Edited posthumously by his wife, Barbara Hussey, Justin Keating’s notebooks offer an in-depth, often-impassioned account of the interests, musings and opinions of one of Ireland’s most wide-ranging intellectuals. His dealings with J.D Bernal, Noël Browne, Sean McBride, Charles Haughey, Gerry Fitt and Conor Cruise-O’Brien, form part of this absorbing chronicle, aside from myriad friendships with writers and artists. Nothing Is Written in Stone is a brilliant selfportrait of this multi-dimensional man, who did so much to shape twenty-first century Ireland.

The Great Spotted Woodpecker first bred in Ireland in 2009. Since then the author has followed the daily lives of this species, a family of whom had taken up residence in a windtorn Spanish chestnut tree near his home in the depths of County Wicklow. This unique and personal account of a family of woodpeckers raising their young brings the reader deep into the world of this fascinating species: a world of hope, love, death, new life and ultimately success. It explores the richness and diversity of the natural wonders found in County Wicklow against a backdrop of a more general overview of the species in Ireland. It includes a foreword by filmmaker John Boorman, and features illustrations by Killian Mullarney and Flemming Christoffersen with stunning colour photographs by Dick Coombes. This book is to be treasured by everyone – not just ornithologists, but those with an interest in the natural world around them.

As I step out of the conservatory facing North, supported by my pusher, the first that catches my eye is the dying Sycamore which escapes death every year by producing a healthy crop of leaves, but it looks so decrepit that surely it can't pull that trick yet again. -1 April, 2020 In his eighty-eighth year, John Boorman uses his time in lockdown to reflect on the splendour of the surrounding nature of County Wicklow. Coccooning with his daughter and son among the hills of Annamoe, Boorman chronicles his daily walks and observations of the trees on his estate, writing with heightened appreciation of the beauties of his eyrie using only one eye and one finger. Poetry flows from his pen as he sits chairbound among his trees and flora: sycamores, limes, beech, oak, redwood, shrubs and flowers, birdsong and shifting skies are luminously recorded as the world falls silent. With illustrations by Susan Morley, this slim but meditative volume is a remarkable narrative by the creator of The Emerald Forest, Excalibur and Deliverance - a swansong like no other.

Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox play "weekend warriors" who set off in two canoes down a mystery-laden Georgia river - and discover a wilderness of terror. Director John Boorman sets them - and viewers - on the knife-edge of survival.

Adapted by James Dickey from his novel and nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Picture, this movies draws us in with the irresistible force of a raging current.

An American engineer (Powers Boothe) loses his seven-year-old son in a Brazilian rainforest and devotes the next ten years to looking for him. When he does find him - fully integrated into a remote primitive tribe - he must decide whether his son is actually better off staying where he is. John Boorman directs, while his son Charley plays the grown-up missing youngster.

Seen through the eyes of a young boy, the 'fireworks' provided by the Blitz every night are as exciting as they are terrifying. His family do not see things in quite the same way and as the bombs continue to drop, their will to survive brings them closer together.

The nightly raids do not provide the only drama, however, as his sister falls for a Canadian airman and finding her life turned upside down, soon discovers how valuable the bonds of family can become.

Hope And Glory paints a picture of a world riven by conflict and yet united in resistance to the creeping tide of war that seems to be marching ever closer.