Screenings

2008

Göttingen International Ethnographic Film Festival, Germany

RTÉ Television Broadcast (Here To Stay, 52 min)

World Witness Film Festival, Belltable, Limerick, Ireland

2007

Human Rights Nights International Film Festival, Bologna, Italy

GAZE: Gay/Lesbian Film Festival, Dublin

9th Cinemanila International Film Festival, Philippines

Guth Gafa Documentary Film Festival, Donegal, Ireland

San Francisco Irish Film Festival

Green Cuts Film Festival, Berlin (Reel Ireland)

Multicultural Broadcast Media Award (MAMA)

Waterford Film Festival, Ireland

2006

Premiere: ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ International Documentary Film Festival, Dublin

Supported by

Irish Film Board (Bord Scannán na héireann)

The Atlantic Philanthropies

SIPTU Against Racism Group

Know Racism

Irish Nurses Organisation

Columban Missionaries

Credits

Directors: Alan Grossman and Áine O’Brien

Editor: Brian Truglio

Camera: Alan Grossman

Additional Camera: Brendan Bourke

Sound: Alan Grossman and Mo O’Riordan

Executive Producer: Barrie Dowdall, Telwell Productions

Research: Alan Grossman and Áine O’Brien

Highwire Postproduction Supervision: Louise Curran

Subtitles: Rojel Orvos, Bernard Uy and Vising Kennedy

The Centre for Transcultural Research and Media Practice

Here To Stay

Shot over a period of three years and part-funded by the Irish Film Board, this ethnographic documentary film is an intimate portrait of Filipino nurse Fidel Taguinod and the public expression of his political activism, in dialogue with civil society representatives, challenging and probing the inadequacies of immigration policy in Ireland. The film poses a fundamental question regarding the promotional prospects of migrant nurses, working in the Irish healthcare service. 

Fidel leads the viewer through a series of migrant-led events, illustrating the political mobilisation of overseas nurses and how trade unionism develops in a rapidly expanding multiracial Irish society. Through a sustained period of observational filming on the hospital ward, the film depicts Fidel’s managerial competence, his working relations with patients, consultants, Irish and overseas nursing staff. Tracking the mobilisation of the Overseas Nurses Section of the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) from its inception, with Fidel as President, Here To Stay captures the evolution of political process over time, highlighting critical debates in Section meetings and within INO conferences. Fidel’s world outside the hospital environment, his domestic life where he lives with his Irish partner, is further explored, as is the negotiation of his gay identity in public performances such as ‘Miss Alternative Philippines’ and ‘Diva Manila’, in which he playfully mixes gay politics with migrant and multicultural issues.

Click 'More Info' for further details on this project.