Every Moon Is Atrocious – a cinematic love letter to a poet

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The new film Every Moon Is Atrocious presents a psychogeographic voyage by artist and filmmaker Yvonne McDevitt, who uses the poetry of her late brother Niall McDevitt to take us through the cinematic journey of a poet who realises his life has been a mirage.

Ahead of its World Premiere at this year’s Dublin International Film Festival, Una introduces Every Moon Is Atrocious below.

William Blake, Arthur Rimbaud, Shakespeare, and W. B. Yeats inspired my brother to become a poet.

Later in life, Micheal Hartnett became a guiding light for him, especially when he came to understand the deep limitations imposed by enforced removal from his mother tongue. His poetry, like his life, was a journey through language, identity, and memory.

After my brother’s death on September 29, 2022, I knew I had to honour his voice. The Arts Council gave me the opportunity to do so through Reel Art, an award for aesthetically-driven feature films on artistic subjects. The result is Every Moon Is Atrocious, a film that seeks not only to capture his poetry but to make it live, breathe, and speak through the lens of cinema.

Dublin, London, Paris, and Jerusalem were the cities that shaped my brother’s psychogeographic terrain. Through four collections of poems, each city left its mark on his imagination, and it was in these streets, cafes, and quiet corners that I began our journey.

Filming took place over several months with a small but dedicated team, a truck full of equipment, and a willingness to explore. We approached the project like a road trip of discovery, both of place and of self. Roberto Rossellini’s Journey to Italy (1954), itself inspired by James Joyce’s Exiles (1912), guided our cinematic sensibility: a man and a woman traversing time, history, and geography, discovering themselves along the way.

There was a deep personal layer to this journey. My brother knew he was dying. I did not. On the day of his passing, I sat at his bedside and watched him, his eyes still shining with life, as if he had always been, in that moment, the Poem itself.

Every Moon Is Atrocious is, above all, a love letter. It is a film about absence and presence, memory and place, loss and the enduring power of words. It is my attempt to hold onto him, to give form to his voice, and to let others experience the intensity, beauty, and courage of his work.

There was a deep personal layer to this journey. My brother knew he was dying. I did not.

I am profoundly grateful to everyone who supported the film, and especially to The Arts Council and DIFF, whose belief in this project made it possible. This film exists because of a shared understanding: that art, like love, survives beyond the finite measure of a single life.

Through Every Moon Is Atrocious, my brother’s poetry continues to speak, to haunt, and to inspire. And for that, I am forever thankful.

Every Moon Is Atrocious screens at the Dublin International Film Festival on February 23rd – find out more here