A lyrical memoir and family history told through four generations of
fathers and sons in Northern Ireland A smuggler and a deserter, Darran
Anderson’s grandfather skirted the Second World War on the fringes of
legality. Anderson’s father survived the height of the political violence
in Northern Ireland, and Anderson came of age during the final years of the
Troubles. As a young man fighting for direction in a country upended by
years of civil war, Anderson found himself lost in the midst of hedonism,
division, and isolation. To find a way to exist in the world, he felt
compelled to leave his home town of Derry, Ireland. But the mysterious
disappearance of Anderson’s cousin forces him back to his city, and, in
turn, its history. Searching, in the present day, for his cousin’s body
along the Foyle River, Anderson examines how his grandparents lost their
lives in the same river. As he continues to search, his father and uncle by
his side, Anderson uncovers tales and mythologies in the surroundings,
forgotten writings, anecdotes, and accounts, piecing together these lives
as he moves down the river. Through a private microcosm, the fate of an
entire city (and a larger story about Ireland) is sensitively and
cinematically told. Exploring a landscape that changes with the river from
nautical to urban to rural, and replete with stories of heartache,
revolution, and redemption, Inventory is a gripping and moving affirmation
of how we can emerge from tragedy with renewed hope and a deeper awareness
of who we are.