Enjoy this beautiful, eight-minute movie about beer: The Struggle of Libations

We’ve had a long distance love affair with Dublin for quite some time. It’s a city full of great writers and great drinkers. It’s also a city that attracts great filmmakers — from Neil Jordan to Jim Sheridan. Michigan’s Erin Mullally was similarly captivated by the Irish capital — both its drinking habits and creative outlets.

“Dublin has become a real multicultural place in recent years,” Mullally explained. “Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, LinkedIn all have their European headquarters here, bringing in workers from all over Europe. As I’m American myself, I eventually formed a group of Irish and ex-pat friends after moving here to Dublin. So when we would be out having a few drinks together, we always would notice differences in drinking habits. Our Irish friends, both male and female, would generally drink beer, while the French would of course be drinking wine. Others were sort of in-betweeners. Anyway, it was sort of a fun thing that eventually gave birth to the idea of the short film.”

“The Struggle of Libations” is the result. It’s Mullally’s first film, a passion he’s growing while doubling as an account director at Hopscotch Europe PR. Set in Dublin, the eight-minute short tells the story of a typical Irish stout drinker. Ever loyal to his post-work pint, one evening he is tempted to switch to a glass of wine instead … can he resist?

“We started working on ‘The Struggle of Libations’ several years ago,” said Mullally. “We had no funding — it’s totally from our own back pockets — but we were able to film at several locations around Dublin who were all great to us, primarily the Gravediggers pub close to Glasnevin Cemetery. The Gravediggers is sort of a ‘must visit’ pub for any of your readers traveling to Dublin.”

The film has been screened at 35 different film festivals over the last year and a half, and last week it was released to the public. Watch it above. We absolutely love that it’s basically a silent film and our protagonist David McGowan beautifully mimes his way through the emotional roller coaster that is having a favorite alcoholic beverage. It’s gorgeously shot with a classy, efficacious score composed by Peter Slankster.  Cheers to the whole production, and congrats on making beer into the movie star it deserves to be.

Side bar: When (not if) the zombie apocalypse ravages our communities into a Walking Dead-like society, CBB has made plans to move our offices to Trinity College Library. So if we get separated when the end is nigh, you’ll know where to find us.