George Stoney says he has dumb luck. His grandfather was the doctor on the island in Ireland where the legendary maker of documentary film, Robert Flaherty, shot his film Man of Aran. So Stoney's film, exploring the effects Flaherty's film had on the island and its people, is digging into his own roots as an individual while simultaneously studying the work of his intellectual mentor as a producer of nonfiction films.
Robert Flaherty's 1934 classic Man of Aran chronicled fishermen's struggle for existence on Ireland's bleak Aran Islands. Stoney revisits the islands and interviews surviving locals about their memories of the original film - and their reactions to making this one. It includes excerpts from the original documentary. Stoney says, "How the Myth Was Made illustrates what I believe to be a common truth: the filmmaker always leaves his mark on the places and the people he films."
