Mac Premo’s punchy portrait of Belfast

Director Mac Premo’s relationship with Belfast started at a summer camp in America, thousands of miles away. 

A childhood friend he made there invited him to visit his hometown, which quickly became a second home for the director. He fell in love with the city’s “rough edges” and warm welcoming heart and has returned for artistic collaborations many times. 

Wanting to create a short film that explores what Northern Ireland has come to represent within the global consciousness, he found a poetic partner in the boxer O’Hara-McCafferty, whom he feels exemplifies the beauty and brutality of Belfast. 

In Kristina she narrates the poem Mother Ireland by Eavan Boland, which describes the land coming to know itself, coming to realise its identity: "I learned my name. I rose up. I remembered it. Now I could tell my story. It was different from the story told about me."

Premo commented: “The wonder of Belfast is that it eludes simple definition. You have to really know the place. But at the same time, there’s a beautiful simplicity in what it values: resilience; determination; perseverance; family. Kristina embodies that virtue set, she lives it. I thought by making a film about her, maybe we could stand next to something that can’t be so easily summed up.”