Michael Dwyer, film critic for The Irish Times and co-founder of the Dublin Film Festival, has died aged just 58. Dwyer was much-loved by all cinema fans for his honest yet considerate reviews and for his tireless championing of Irish and gay cinema.

When Michael started writing about films over 20 years ago, Ireland was a cinematic wasteland only coloured by American releases or small RTE and/or BBC films. He was a lover of the finer things, however, and was an passionate follower of foreign, gay and arthouse films.

According to the Irish Times:

A native of Tralee, Co Kerry, he first publicly expressed his love of movies through his involvement in the Tralee Film Society in the early 1970s, before going on to establish and manage the Federation of Irish Film Societies, co-ordinating the distribution and exhibition of arthouse films around the country.

When he co-founded the Dublin Film Festival back in 1985, it was an immediate success attracting many directors and actors to come to Ireland to introduce their films – an honour only reserved for the most prestigious festivals.

Michael was in heaven at the most prestigious – Cannes. Again, The Irish Times:

In 1982 he travelled for the first time to the world’s pre-eminent film event, the Festival de Cannes, and went on to attend every festival there since then. His relationship with Cannes, along with his position as Ireland’s foremost cinema critic, was recognised in 2006, when the French government appointed him a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.

He fell ill following his return from the Cannes festival last May. Writing three weeks ago in The Irish Times , he recalled how “not since I was a small boy had I experienced such a gap in my cinema-going life as I did this summer”, and how he felt when he saw his first film after that gap: “As the audience filed in all around us, I felt a deep sense of belonging and a surge of pleasure to be in a cinema after all those months, to be back where I belonged.”

He also belonged at the heart of the gay community, his community, where he worked behind the scenes in many ways. He changed cinema in Ireland, he changed what was acceptable to screen, proving that there is an audience for gay films in Ireland. He loved the gay film festivals in Ireland and could always be depended upon to attend, raising the festival’s profile just by his appearance.

As an Irish, gay film-lover, I feel a real loss at Michael’s passing. I never knew him, never met him but was touched by him, he made it possible for me to see other worlds, other possibilities.

Michael is survived by his beloved partner, Brian, his mother, Mary, and sisters, Anne and Maria.

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