A question of taste: Film-maker Rebecca Daly

Cork-based film-maker Rebecca Daly will be in attendance at Triskel tomorrow for a screening of her latest offering, Good Favour, which runs at the venue until Monday.

Set in the forests of central Europe among a deeply religious community, the film had its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival last year. Daly’s previous offering, Mammal, starred Rachel Griffiths and Barry Keoghan.

Best recent book you’ve read:

Grief is the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter.

Best recent show you’ve seen:

I loved Eadaoin O’Donoghue and John O’Brien’s The Nightingale and the Rose, recently performed at the Everyman. It was beautifully simple and touching, with a sublime ending.

Best piece of music you’ve been listening to lately (new or old):

I love the Alabama Shakes album — Sound & Colour. It’s so funky. I like to dance to it. And clean to it.

Which film should win the best picture Oscar this year?

Of the nominees I think it should go to Roma or BlacKkKlansman but would have been good to see some others on the list — like even one film directed by a woman.

What’s the best Irish film you’ve seen in the past year?

The Favourite. Olivia Colman is magnificent.

First ever piece of music or film that really moved you:

Disney’s Lady and the Tramp when I was about 7. My sisters and I copied the way they sucked up the spaghetti for weeks afterwards.

The best gig or show you’ve ever seen (if you had to pick one!):

REM in Slane in 1995. They were supported by an as yet unknown Oasis — stewards were handing out fake monobrows as a bizarre but extremely effective PR stunt.

One of my friends lost her very expensive contact lens but we managed to find it somehow in the muck.

REM were amazing, well worth the three-hour walk back to the buses afterwards.

Tell us about your TV viewing:

Flowers on Channel 4 is truly brilliant — I keep recommending it to people but for some reason no-one’s watching it.

It’s hands down the best thing I’ve seen in the last couple of years, soulful, hearbreaking, funny, weird plus it stars Olivia Colman.

Its creator Will Sharpe is some kind of genius.

When I learned that John McCarthy (actor, writer and native Cork man) watched it too I knew he was the one — although he does seem a bit disturbed by my post-show blubbing…

Radio listening and/or podcasts:

In our Time and Invisibilia – I like these shows and they help me sleep.

From a director’s perspective, your favourite three films ever:

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives: A beautiful, mystical Thai film in which ghosts are apelike with red eyes.

Under the Skin: An absolute mind bender of a film, starring Scarlett Johansson as an alien in Glasgow, a visual gamechanger.

Lost in Translation, from Sophia Coppola. Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson fall in love drinking whiskey and doing karaoke in Tokyo.

Your best celebrity encounter:

I had a chat with Ryan Gosling in Cannes when my first film The Other Side of Sleep screened at the festival. He was hanging around a dustbin wearing a cowboy hat and was extremely charming.

You can portal back to any period of human cultural history?

I would go back to the early 1980s when The BFG was about to come out. The anticipation of getting that book for Christmas was an unbelievably exciting time for me. I could hardly sleep!

I was completely transported by this little girl with thick glasses who communicates beautifully with both a big friendly giant and a queen.

My nephews recently discovered Roald Dahl and the youngest gave me his copy of The BFG when he heard it was my favourite book too.

Do you have any interesting ancestors or family?

My great aunt Eleanor was a pharmacist in a small town in Longford when women just didn’t do that.

My grandmother used to say I was like her, but she said it like it wasn’t a compliment.

You are queen for a day – what’s your first decree?

I’d ban popcorn and crinkly sweets in cinemas (OK maybe not popcorn…)