The Good Farmer and the Failed Son
2025 · 10m · Ireland
Directed by Ailill Martin
Genres: documentary, LGBTQ+
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Documentary following Jack, a drag queen, and his father Bryan as they reckon with the traditions of inheritance and what they mean for the future of their family farm. The film holds these two seemingly incompatible worlds — agricultural legacy and queer performance — in tender, unresolved conversation.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Martin finds the documentary's formal grace in patience — letting a father and drag-queen son circle the question of who inherits the farm without ever forcing a resolution, trusting the land itself to hold the tension.
Irish drag queen and his farmer father reckoning with inheritance. Vimeo Staff Pick. Ten minutes. The drag-as-costume / farm-as-costume parallel is genuinely good — both inherited, both performed. Martin found the right metaphor and the documentary form to hold it.
Ailill Martin finds the collision between drag performance and farm inheritance as poetic mirror — both are costumes, both demand devotion to a role. The unresolved register is the film's tender thesis.
Festivals
- Raindance Film Festival 2025
- Slamdance Film Festival 2025
- Kinsale Film Festival 2025
- TEFF 2025, Jury's Choice Award