aemi Newsletter September 2023

This is a still from the film 'Cette maison (This House)' by Haitian-Canadian director Miryam Charles. In the image, a person with dark skin tone is seated in a room filled with green plants and colourful flowers in shades of pink, purple, orange, and white. Their hair is braided and secured at the ends with cream and brown beads. They are dressed in a pale purple t-shirt and seated at a diagonal angle to the camera. Their gaze is directed at a person just outside the frame, with only their left hand visible. With both hands outstretched, they are handing a bunch of white flowers to the unseen individual.

Still from Cette maison (This House), 2022, by Miryam Charles. Irish Premiere presented by aemi & IFI on September 20th at 6:30pm. Image courtesy of the artist and Oyster Films.

Hi everyone,

We hope you enjoyed the last burst of summer at the start of this month and the wet autumn weather isn’t coming as too much of a shock to the system. We were excited to kick off the international leg of our tour of ‘Súitú’ last week, with two screenings in the Netherlands. We were joined by featured artists Lisa Freeman, Susan Hughes, and Holly Márie Parnell, who took part in post-screening discussions with Cristina Kolozsváry-Kiss, Programmer of Short Film at International Film Festival Rotterdam at Filmhuis Cavia in Amsterdam, and with filmmaker and programmer Tim Leyendekker at WORM in Rotterdam. The programme will be at Galleri Format in Malmö on October 3rd and Filmform in Stockholm on October 5th so please come and help spread the word if you’ll be in Sweden next month. Our sincere thanks to Culture Ireland for their support of these international screenings of our touring programme.

Nationally, ‘Súitú’ will be presented as a fully captioned in-person installation at the Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray, Co. Wicklow, from October 14th to December 2nd. You can stay up to date on all our ‘Súitú’ touring programme announcements here.

In other news, we are thrilled to present the Irish premiere of Cette maison (This House), the stunning feature debut by Miryam Charles, with the IFI tomorrow evening, September 20th. This film has received significant accolades since its premiere at the Berlinale last year, including a place on the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound’s list of the 50 best films of 2022. In Cette maison, the director examines the death of her teenage cousin in Bridgeport, U.S.A., in 2008. A cathartic ghost story that plays out in the liminal spaces between and beyond life and death, this film also asks important questions relating to exile and the persisting legacies of colonization. You can learn more about Cette Maison in a video conversation between Charles and aemi co-director Alice Butler, which is available here.

We’re also looking forward to presenting the world premiere of Fiona Hallinan’s Making Dust as part of the IFI Documentary Festival on October 1st. A powerful portrait of the demolition in 2021 of the Church of the Annunciation in Finglas, Hallinan’s stunning film essay is structured around a fascinating and deeply insightful essay by architectural historian Ellen Rowley. Fiona and Ellen will be at the IFI to present the film and the screening is almost sold out, so make sure to grab the last few tickets here!

We also wanted to draw attention to Long time we’ve been working / Tamall fada atá muid ag obair – a new exhibition and public programme presented by Project Arts Centre and organised in partnership with us and Cinenova, a volunteer-run organisation preserving and distributing the work of feminist film and video makers. Long time we’ve been working includes and is curated around films from Cinenova’s project The Work We Share – newly digitised films from the amazing Cinenova collection addressing representations of gender, race, sexuality, health and community. The exhibition comprises three different chapters and features work by artists Jay Bernard, Renèe Helèna Browne, Jacqui Duckworth, L. Franklin Gilliam, Onyeka Igwe, Rene Matic, Adriana Monti, Francis O’Mahony, Alice Rekab, S. Pearl Sharp, Sistren Theatre Collective, and Soft Fiction Projects within an exhibition space designed by Christopher McMullan. Visit here for further information.

We would love to see you at some of our events, both in Ireland and abroad, in the coming months! In the meantime, we hope you enjoy our recommendations and InFocus segments below.

With best wishes,

Alice Butler, Daniel Fitzpatrick and Áine Stapleton
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The image is the title of the exhibition “Long time we’ve been working” and its opening dates 8th Sept - 11th Nov. The text is in black on a white background with a grid and yellow accent elements. The serif font of the text is adapted with abstract shapes and images drawn from the films in the exhibition including a figure’s shadow, a flower and a flowing paper ribbon.

Poster for Long time we’ve been working / Tamall fada atá muid ag obair, a new exhibition and public programme presented by Project Arts Centre and organised in partnership with Cinenova, a volunteer-run organisation preserving and distributing the work of feminist film and video makers, and aemi.

Selected recommendations 

Long time we’ve been working / Tamall fada atá muid ag obair by Project Arts Centre in partnership with Cinenova and aemi – Showing at Project Arts Centre in Dublin, from September 8th to November 11th. The programme includes films from Cinenova’s project The Work We Share – newly digitised films from the Cinenova collection addressing representations of gender, race, sexuality, health and community – and contemporary works from Ireland and beyond that have a resonance or rhyme with the historical works.

Screening Event featuring Ben Rivers, Amanda Rice and Eco Showboat on Thursday 21st September, 6.30pm, in the Arts Building of Trinity College Dublin. Co-curated by Rachel Botha, Marie Farrington, and Emily Miller, and presented as part of the September public programme of the exhibition ‘Glossaries for Forwardness’ by Marie Farrington in the Museum Building.

Film Writing: ‘Open City Texts’ is a collection of new writing on new non-fiction films commissioned by the Open City Documentary Festival in London. The texts are available online here.

Selected upcoming opportunities for film artists

Upcoming open calls and artist opportunities include the Arts and Disability Connect awards scheme 2023 and The Arts Council Film Project Award.

Upcoming film festival submission deadlines include Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival and Galway Film Fleadh.

Check out more national & international open calls, film festivals and opportunities here.

A woman with short black hair stands looking at the camera in front of a wall. The wall features a collage made from newspaper clippings relating to censorship. She is wearing an 1980s style suit.

Still from Few Can See, 2023, by Frank Sweeney. Screening at Gardens International as part of Eva International in Limerick, August 31st to October 29th, 2023. Image courtesy of the artist.

In Focus: The 40th Eva International

This month’s In Focus showcases the 40th Eva International – Ireland’s Biennial of Contemporary Art. The event takes place at venues across Limerick until October 29th and features a ‘Guest Programme’ curated by Sebastian Cichocki, as well as new artist commissions. EVA International Commission Few Can See by Frank Sweeney, examines the legacy of broadcast censorship of the Northern Ireland conflict and political movements during this era. The film premiered as part Eva International on September 2nd and will continue to screen until October 29th at Gardens International. Another Eva International commission is Another Shot at Love by Bea McMahon, a project that consists of a series of performance and video works, exploring comedic tropes through language, materials and bodies. Also featured is Bryony Dunne’s Surrender Your Horns, a film that starts with a lonesome Irish man snorting a substance of powdered horn, who then undergoes a bestial metamorphosis. More aemi recommendations include The Invisibles by Sarah Durcan, developed as part of Eva International’s ‘Platform Commissions’ iniative, as well as All is leaf, so to amplify the wonder by Rosalind Fowler, and If Revolution is a sickness by Diane Severin Nguyen. To explore the full programme, please visit here.
aemi is funded by The Arts Council

Supporting and Exhibiting Artists' and Experimental Moving Image in association with LUX, the Irish Film Institute and Temple Bar Gallery + Studios. Supported by the Arts Council.