Citizen Lane

Synopsis

Citizen Lane is a feature documentary set in Dublin in the early years of the 20th century - a time of political ferment and the forging of a new Irish cultural identity. it tells the story of Hugh Lane's hard fought project to establish a public modern art gallery, showing the work of living artists, his untimely death on the Lusitania and his contested Will. It's a story that continues in the here and now, as Citizen Lane plays its part in the long-running, still charged, campaign to recover Lane's Bequest of 39 'Continental' paintings, including masterpieces by Monet, Renoir, Manet and Pissarro, for Ireland. In a narrative inter cut with scripted drama, acted by a distinguished cast including Tom Vaughan Lawlor and Michael Gambon, a series of 'character interviews' with Lane's friends and family develops a story richly illustrated with the paintings now hanging in the gallery founded by Lane, one of the greatest benefactors of the arts in Ireland - and the paintings lost for now to.