The Last of the Storytellers is a film that explores two of the most significant materials that built Belfast – linen and stone. But beyond the factories, the streets and the terraced houses are the lives and memories of the working people who inhabited them.
Colm Laverty describes his approach: “Marrying beautifully-shot archive film with Noel Currie’s pensive voiceover and Richard’s propulsive electronic composition, I wanted this piece to focus on the human stories within an era of monumental technological and cultural change. Amidst the vibrant, glossy scenes of industrial and tourism films were the shaky, intimate images of ordinary families at home and at leisure, thanks to relatively new formats such as Super 8mm. Tea and sandwiches, seaside picnics, sharing photo albums – universal, timeless scenes that contribute as much to our shared history as anything else.”
Laverty mirrors the rhythmic energy of Clements' propulsive soundtrack with striking imagery of machines in motion and people at work, seamlessly interwoven with glimpses of domestic life and quiet moments of aspiration. What makes this film’s subject so compelling comes from a chance encounter. Richard Clements recalls meeting Noel Currie on the outskirts of Bangor, an ordinary moment that became something much more: “I met Noel Currie by chance on the outskirts of Bangor one day, telling him a little bit about what I was up to with Storymakers. He said, ‘oh I have a story or two’ and started talking. With the traffic noise in the background I worried that the audio quality wouldn’t be great, indeed some of it didn’t make the cut, but something special came out of that conversation. Noel’s reflections sound like lost audio footage as he talks of N Ireland’s linen industry and the power of storytelling.”
These reflections, paired with the evocative archive imagery, create a cinematic elegy for a forgotten time. As Laverty notes, the film ends on a note of reflection, with Currie highlighting the importance of storytelling and preservation: “It’s through projects like these, and the work of the Digital Film Archive, that all of these memories can be maintained for future generations. The Last of the Storytellers is a perfect example of what I wanted to achieve from this project, capturing moments that otherwise would be lost to history.”