Time Traveller
2018 · 12m · Ireland
Directed by Steve Kenny
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, family
Tones: contemplative, tender, whimsical
A Back to the Future-obsessed young Irish Traveller races to finish his DeLorean replica before his family’s eviction from their halting site.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The premise is almost too perfect—Traveller kid, DeLorean obsession, eviction clock—but Kenny resists the sentimental trap and lets the contradiction breathe: this isn't magical realism, it's just a kid chasing something impossible in material conditions that don't care about his dreams, and that refusal to sentimentalize is genuinely unsettling.
A quietly assured coming-of-age that knows its lineage—the working-class dignity of Ken Loach, the tonal balance of early John Carney—and executes with formal precision: the editing never overplays the heartbreak, the framing respects both the absurdity and the real stakes, placing it squarely in the lineage of socially conscious Irish cinema that trusts restraint.
The film pivots entirely on one decision: shooting the DeLorean construction in real time, unglamorous and incremental, which transforms what could've been a metaphor into an actual, physical act of dignity and resistance—that choice alone makes the whole enterprise work, turning a 12-minute budget constraint into thematic inevitability.
Reviews
Finding strength in simplicity, this is a small film with a lot of heart. Understated performances and natural chemistry between Doran and Barry Ward turn a story that could have been twee into something heartfelt.