The Northern Ireland Screen Archive has once again collaborated with Belfast Film Festival to curate a number of events showcasing the collection in the archive. This year, the events span screenings of previously unseen private collections, new works created by 3rd level students and a live event focussed on Lough Neagh.

The “Wonderfully Interesting, Exciting and Dangerous World” of Harold Johnson

Thurs 29 October, 7pm, Black Box

Harold Johnson was a skilled amateur filmmaker, a Quaker, and a businessman. His collection of over 150 films, shot between the 1930s and 1960s records family holidays, industry and international adventures.

Harold Johnson tickets here 

Student Archive Showcase: Past Scenes, Future Screens

Saturday 31 October, 12pm Ullster University York Street

This showcase brings together a selection of short films from students at Ulster University and Queen’s University Belfast, presented in partnership with Northern Ireland Screen’s Digital Film Archive.

Spanning fiction, documentary and experimental work, these shorts bring together our screen heritage of the past with the filmmaking talent of the future.

Student showcase tickets here

The Lough Speaks

Sunday 1 November, 8pm Black Box

Our annual Digital Film Archive collaboration with BBC NI. This year it uses BBC and UTV archive material alongside live traditional singing, journalism and spoken word to explore Lough Neagh – its history and cultural importance, but also the environmental issues it faces today. A strong example of archive being reinterpreted creatively to engage with a very current issue.

The Lough Speaks tickets here 

The Orange & The Green

Saturday 7 November, 11am, Beanbag Cinema

A screening through the UTV Archive Partnership. Made in 1966, the documentary looks at partition, identity and relations between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Bringing it back to audiences 60 years later shows the value of preserving broadcast material and the new context and relevance it can acquire over time. 

The Orange and The Green tickets here 

heavy, direct, quick

PS2 Gallery, High Streer, Belfast ongoing exhibit 

‘heavy, direct quick’ draws together ideas around power relations, labour, and dance, to consider the social, cultural and political structuring of bodies within the social environment. By acutely focusing on representation of both leisure and labour within the Northern Ireland Screen Digital Film Archive, this work highlights the ways in which humans have always and will always use dance and leisure to follow their intuition and interest, an innate human desire that capitalism, try as it might, cannot rewrite.

Created by Emma Quin