Issue 1: Summer 2008
Experimental Film Club (Dublin)
Review Posted: 08 Jun 08
During the retrospective of the work of Jonas Mekas at this year's Dublin Film Festival, a panel discussion took place in the upstairs bar of the Ha'penny Bridge Inn. One of the issues that came up during the talk was the absence of any venue for experimental film in Dublin. The barman of the Ha'penny deserves perhaps first credit for that no longer being the case: when this point was brought up he casually suggested the pub as a possible venue.
Within a few weeks, and under the initiative of artist Aoife Desmond, the Experimental Film Club was born. Taking place on a Sunday afternoon once a month in the Ha'penny, the EFC was set up by Desmond and a small, diverse group of filmmakers, artists and curators.
So far they have presented three screenings, each programme consisting of several classic films of the avant garde, along with one film by an Irish experimental filmmaker. 'Projection 1' featured one film selected by each of the four organisers: Chris Marker's Sans Soleil (1983) and La Jetee (1962), Samuel Beckett's Film (1964) and Moira Tierney's American Dreams 3: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (2002). 'Projection 2' included an excerpt from Mekas' Lost, Lost, Lost (1976) along with Oskar Fischinger's Walking from Munich to Berlin (1927, screened on 16mm) and Donal O'Ceilleachair's With Wind and White Cloud (2005), which was inspired by the Fischinger film. O'Ceilleachair was present at the screening and arranged a unique, once-off simultaneous projection of White Cloud and Munich to Berlin on top of each other, with surprisingly stunning results. 'Projection 3', which took place on May 18th, presented a triple bill entitled 'Play and Destruction' and focused on avant garde films which employ and subvert elements such as fantasy, genre and theatricality. The programme included 16mm projections of Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures (1963) and Vivienne Dick's She Had Her Gun All Ready (1978), along with a lesser-known film by genre-twisting madman Mike Kuchar entitled The Craven Sluck (1967). Irish filmmaker Vivienne Dick was present at the screening.
-Donal Foreman
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