Tomorrow is Saturday 

Thursday November 4^th 2021

RTÉ One

10.15pm – 11.20pm

‘Tomorrow is Saturday’ is an intimate, fascinating portrait of Irish collage artist Sean Hillen – a brilliant, complex, unruly mind, hemmed in behind a lifetime’s collection of hoarded junk, unfinished art and precious memories at his tiny Dublin terraced home.

Tomorrow is Saturday is a TV cut of the IFTA 2021 nominated  feature documentary, which won the audience award in the IFI documentary festival 2020.

Diagnosed with Aspergers in his late 50s, Sean, the most heavily censored artist to come out of Ireland or Britain, has reached the point where his mental state and physical surroundings had brought his creativity to a halt.

Trapped in a tiny terraced house, full to the brim with junk, unfinished art and boxes of memories, Newry born Sean embarks on a journey to declutter and make sense of his life as he waits the arrival of his beloved Amy – an American woman with whom he communicates daily, but has yet to meet.

At age 17, he began to document what he saw, photographing images considered at that time to be too stark and raw for publication. Bitterly disappointed, he threw the negatives into a plastic bag where they remained for over a decade before being resurrected for an exhibition in the National Library of Ireland.

Since his time at art college in London, Sean has exhibited widely in museums and galleries north and south of the border. As a complex and subversive social commentator, his compulsion to ‘fix the world through art’ would lead to IRELANTIS (1994-1997) – a playful photomontage series using John Hinde postcards to poke fun at Irish mythology.

Seán has amassed an incredible record of Irish life; 30 years of living history is scattered on the floor, strewn across chairs, jostling for space on tables. But even he admits that things have come to a head. As the date of Amy’s arrival draws closer, he embarks on a massive declutter with the support of friends, attempting to bring order to his life. But as he unearths 30 years of memories, he remains hamstrung by his inability to let go.

* Tomorrow is Saturday is a TV cut of the IFTA 2021 nominated  feature documentary, which won the audience award in the IFI documentary festival 2020.

Tomorrow is Saturday is produced by GMARSHTV Productions in association with RTÉ and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland

Executive Producer for RTÉ Ray McCarthy

Directed by Gillian Marsh and Gretta Ohle

Produced by Mairead Tucker