Curated by aemi for CIFF (Cork International Film Festival), Flights from Reason is a programme of new works by film artists from Ireland, France, the U.K., Poland and Sweden.
Working within a range of interconnected contexts and from a rich variety of sources the filmmakers in this programme all employ an indirect approach to their subjects, producing exciting forms of visual and sonic montage as a means of expressing unknowns, engaging with evasive figures and connecting with buried or fading histories. A complex of ideas emerges, producing entanglements where conscious and unconscious intertwine, ‘psychic knots’, as described by Joanna Stroud, that can be considered without a need for resolution.
FILM INFORMATION:
Aurélien Froment, Louis et les langues (Louis and languages), 2023, U.K., 22 minutes
Saskia Holmkvist, Margaret (Back Translation), 2023, Sweden, 19 minutes
Keira Greene, Máthair, 2024, U.K., 16 minutes
Ewelina Rosinska, Popół imieniem jest człowieka, Ashes by name is man, 2022, Germany, 20 minutes
Chloe Brenan, Different Dusts, 2021, Ireland, 7 minutes
Aurélien Froment | Louis et les langues (Louis and languages) | 2023 | U.K. | 22 minutes
English, French, Spanish, Yiddish, ST English
Louis, a young man treated for schizophrenia, lives with his mother and stepfather. He refuses his mother tongue, the English idiom, which is spoken by everyone around him. Inspired by Louis Wolfson’s book, Le Schizo et les langues.
Saskia Holmkvist | Margaret (Back Translation) | 2023 | Sweden |19 minutes
Weaving together staged scenes, documentary elements and archival footage, Margaret (Back Translation) explores the recent history of Belfast by reflecting on a 2001 performance commemorating Margaret Wright, whose brutal murder took place in the city in 1994, the last (official) year of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. The film constructs its delicate narrative from absences, halting conversations, memories of secondhand experience, people who never quite appear from behind half-open doors…
Keira Greene | Máthair | 2024 | U.K. | 16 minutes
In 1954 an Irish woman travelled alone to England to give birth in secret in a Catholic Mother and Baby Home, she then returned to Ireland having given up the baby to the nuns. This event is the departure point for Keira Greene’s film Máthair.
Ewelina Rosinska | Popół imieniem jest człowieka, Ashes by name is man | 2022 | Germany | 20 minutes
Polish filmmaker Ewelina Rosinska explores the textures and landscapes of her homeland, a place of contrasts and parallels, where Catholicism and the natural world swirl in a baroque gesture. A delicate, melancholy history weaves through the details of this poetic and poignant impression.
Chloe Brenan | Different Dusts | 2021 | Ireland | 7 minutes
‘Different Dusts’ is a non-narrative, experimental Super 8mm film and sound work. Using the theremin (as a sensor of forces below the threshold of human perception) as a central motif, the film explores the sensing/vulnerable body, intuition, tacit knowledge, erosion and measurement against a backdrop of climate change.
