We are proud to feature some highlights from the Irish Film Institute season at this years Dublin International Film Festival. These include two Arts Council funded Reel Art documentaries receiving their world premieres – Notes From Sheepland and Fields of Darkness; the Irish premiere of The Future Tense, as well as the unique Accidental Anthropologist offering a snapshot of 1920s Ireland accompanied by a live score.
Some of these screenings will be world premieres and offer unique cinematic experiences in the IFI, including Accidental Anthropologist, showcasing footage gathered in the 1920s by Benjamin T Gault, a conservationist and naturalist, who visited Ireland filming and collecting seabirds and other wildlife specimens. He also captured the people of Cork and Kerry going about their business, farming, church-going and dancing in the streets. Accompanied by a live soundtrack by harpist Deirdre Granville and flautist Aoife Granville, the screening will offer a rare insight into everyday life in these southern counties at the time.
Staged as a series of voiceover sessions, film duo Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor’s The Future Tense is written with gloriously off-balanced precision and dipped in the colour green. The Future Tense unfolds as a poignant tale of tales, exploring the filmmakers’ own experiences in ageing, parenting, and mental illness, along with the brutal history that lies submerged beneath Ireland’s heavy, moist earth.
Two Reel Art documentaries will receive their world premieres at Dublin International Film Festival. An initiative by the Arts Council this funding programme was designed to make highly creative, imaginative and experimental documentaries on an artistic theme.
Centred around the community and landscape of the darkest inhabited place in Ireland, Michael John Whelan’s Fields of Darkness explores diverse physical and metaphorical perspectives on darkness, weaving together stories from archaeology, spirituality, astronomy, music, and blindness. An imaginative tapestry of human and non-human experiences unfolds across millions of years, from the first life stepping on land to the environmental effects of light pollution.
Cara Holmes’s Notes from Sheepland bursts with candid observations of the lipstick-wearing, always swearing, no-nonsense artist and shepherd, Orla Barry. Through her fields, her digital diaries, and the pedigree sheep she cares for, we discover how the art is in the doing. Barry previously published her book, Shaved Rapunzel, Scheherazade and the Shearling Ram from Arcady. The collection of her performance text and written works explored the different worlds of being an artist and a shepherd.
This season at the Irish Film Institute is not to be missed! Our full festival programme will be revealed on Tuesday 7th February at 1pm. So make sure to put it in your calendars… Currently also available from our website the Season Ticket priced at €220 will give access to cinema screenings including one Gala or Special Event, as well as priority booking for all screenings. Cinema bundles are also available with 5 tickets for €45 and 10 tickets for €85 at the link below.
