SOLUS FILM COLLECTIVE IRISH / ARABIAN FILM TOUR 2009
An Irish / Arabian avant-garde film tour stopping off at CFC in September...
The Solus Irish / Arabian avant-garde film tour brings the work of over 20 filmmakers and artists from Muslim, Arabic speaking countries to 6 venues around Ireland in autumn 2009, running concurrently with the screening of work by 15 emerging and established Irish and international filmmakers and artists in 3 North African and Middle Eastern venues.
Solus is an independent film collective and platform for film-makers working in Super-8mm / 16mm and DV. The group was formed in 1998 in Dublin, Ireland. Solus has the dual aim of showing Irish short and avant-garde films abroad and international short and avant-garde films in Ireland. http://www.soluscollective.org
SCHEDULE:
Cork Film Centre, Ireland: Sept 21st
Alexandria Bibliothecque, Egypt: Sept 25th- 27th
Live@8 Club, Galway, Ireland: Sept 30th
Darklight Film Festival, Ireland: Oct 9th
DEAF: Dublin Electronic Arts Festival, Dublin, Ireland: Oct 21- 31st
'La Maison des Cineastes', Nouakchott, Mauritania (TBC)
'Gort Vibes' Film Club, Ireland: Nov 8th
'El Teatro', Tunis, Tunisia (TBC)
Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, Ireland: Nov 15th
Check Solus website for full venue addresses and screening times ( TBC );
FILM-MAKERS:
Mohamed Allam, Usama Alshaibi, Taysir Batniji, Mary Sue Connolly, Wael Darwish, Vivienne Dick, Sherif El-Bendary, Ahmed El-Gendy, Shady El-Noshokaty, Ahmed El-Shaer, Mounira El-Solh, Karim Fanous, 'Film Flamme/Polygone Etoile', Dina Gamal, Khaled Hafez, Mohamed Hamad, Jaki Irvine, Shady Ishak, Paddy Jolley, Islam Kamal, Ahmed Khaled, Anthony Kelly & David Stalling, James Kelly, Johnny Kelly, Alan Lambert, Ahmed Nabil, Wael Noureddine, Donal O'Ceilleachair, Hala Abou Shady, Moira Tierney, 'Medrar: For Contemporary Art'
Tour funded by Culture Ireland
MORE ABOUT THE PROGRAMME:
SOLUS INDEPENDENT FILM COLLECTIVE IRISH / ARABIAN 'AVANT-GARDE' FILM TOUR 2009
Many of the young film-makers and artists represented in this programme are amongst the first generations to have the means to freely experiment with digital media. Many of the Arabic film-makers are also the first generation of artists growing up against a backdrop of Egyptian modernism, much younger and more turbulent than its Western parent, first finding its own light during the Nasser period of the 1960's and crystallizing later in the 1980's, with the first sculpture and light-work installations of the Axis group. Modernism in Egypt has also brought with it, perhaps as part of a larger modern lexicon and certainly as an element in a condensed, accelerated chronology that mirrors that of Western Modern Art, a tolerance of figurative representation. Figurative representation is traditionally regarded as an opposition to the central aesthetics of Islam and has consequently rarely been practiced in the Middle East to the extent of the full multiple-perspective representation to which Western artists are accustomed. This is a fundamentally different viewpoint from which to connect with the emancipated forms confronted by western experimental film-making. There is an interesting 'feedback loop' at play here, when experimental forms are embraced by artists coming from cultural backgrounds which are not built on the aesthetic principles which led to the development of those forms in the first place, by way of a reaction against them. The young Middle Eastern filmmaker's Irish counterparts may have more roots in, or simply proximity to, the origins of those aesthetic principles, but the struggle with figurative representation that led inexorably to modernism in the west was no more present in the surviving threads of ancient Celtic Art that circled Europe during the mid-twentieth century than it was in Islamic Art, or early 20th century Egypt. But there is still a huge jump in the availability of film / video and digital formats to the present generation in Ireland and, in both instances, the young Irish and Arabic artist is emerging with ingrained cultural perspectives of their own, to a ready-made array of post-modern forms of expression. This programme is intended to overlay these two broad territories of contemporary artistic endeavour, both operating within the influence of western modern, and post-modern art, but with very different histories and perspectives of their own. Although the majority of the artworks represented make use of practices developed by experimental filmmakers the term 'experimental' is problematic in this context as, in many instances, the element of reaction is less against mainstream filmmaking or the form of expression itself, than against cultural restraints brought to the sphere of experimental filmmaking via other historical routes. It is for these reasons that the term 'avant-garde' seems more applicable, as it refers equally to the reaction particular to a time and place as to that relating to a form or practice.
Published on: 20 August, 2009
