Out of Focus: Showcasing Irish & Ireland-based artists pushing the boundaries between visual art and cinema in Kilkenny
Out of Focus emerged from the initiative of Kilkenny-based artists Juana Robles and Michael Higgins, aiming to showcase alternative cinema works often overlooked by conventional cinemas and mainstream avenues. This initiative strives to create a platform for artists, providing them with the opportunity to exhibit their work in a large, professional cinema setting.
The first series of screenings will take place on three Wednesdays this September at the Watergate Theatre in Kilkenny, each starting at 7:30 PM. During these screenings, Out of Focus will present a collection of works by Irish or Ireland-based artists producing experimental, innovative, and unconventional films and videos that blur the line between visual art and cinema.
Each screening will focus on a specific theme, showcasing both old and new productions, including short and feature films. Following each screening, there will be moderated discussions with the filmmakers in attendance, offering a unique insight into their creative processes.
https://www.homerunjr.com/outoffocus
https://www.instagram.com/oof_out_of_focus/
Wed 4 Sep 2024, 7.30pm
# 1 Youth Lens
'Youth Lens' showcases the innovative spirit of young people’s filmmaking that celebrates the transformative potential of filmmaking as a platform for self-expression, creativity, storytelling and community connection.
Films:
'Smiley Wiley' by 4th class students from Askeaton Senior National School
and 'SMOLT' by Michael Higgins
Duration - 75mins
There will be a post screening moderated Q&A with filmmakers.
Book tickets
Wed 11 Sep 2024, 7.30pm
#2 I See a Darkness
I See a Darkness
by Katherine Waugh and Fergus Daly
I See a Darkness is a film essay probing the complex historical relationship between photography, cinema and science. The film builds on Katherine Waugh and Fergus Daly’s previous films which have screened internationally, drawing on material often overlooked or hidden: shadow archives, neglected cultural narratives in film, art and literature, disappeared or challenging areas of knowledge.
Shot in Paris, Death Valley, MIT and the Nevada nuclear test site, the film explores how new technologies of vision were from the outset aggressively instrumentalised by the military-industrial complex for its own ends. A mapping of the often contentious fusion of artistic and technological representational models of our world emerges, pivoting on three iconic figures whose lives and work intersected in compelling ways: Irish-born chrono-photographer Lucien Bull, Harold E. Edgerton (MIT Professor and Atomic test photographer), and oceanographer and conservationist Jacques Cousteau.
I See A Darkness ultimately questions what was disappeared in the ‘progressive’ narrative of image-capture technologies, especially considerations of the non-human and animal, and gestures towards what Jean-Christophe Bailly reminds us of when he writes: “the world in which we live is gazed upon by other beings, that the visible is shared among creatures, and that a politics should be invented on this basis, if it is not too late.
DCP, 135mins, 2023
There will be a post screening moderated Q&A by Daniel Fitzpatrick (aemi) with filmmakers Katherine Waugh and Fergus Daly.
Wed 25 Sep 2024, 7.30pm
#3 Drifting scapes
Utilising satellite imagery, Super 8, 16mm, digital and structural filmmaking, these experimental films explore the interconnectedness of nature, memory, environmental changes and human impact through innovative visual and storytelling techniques using water as the main element.
Films:
- Man of Aral by Helena Gouveia Monteiro
- Passage Migrants by Aoife Desmond
- Mountain-Field, Field-Mountain by Anja Mahler
- Estrangement by Sandra Johnston
- Curraghinalt by Emily McFarland
- FL. oz by Julie Murray
Duration - 112mins
There will be a post screening moderated Q&A with filmmakers.
