The Looking Glass Anthology - Arrival

Eoin O’Callaghan is Elma Orkestra. The Derry-based composer creates beautiful cinematic soundscapes that explore Northern Irish culture. In partnership with Ryan Vail, Eoin released the album Borders in 2019, a magnificent collection of atmospheric arrangements, and winner of the 'Northern Ireland - Album of the Year Music Prize'. Borders challenges geographic and internal divides - The accompanying visuals explore the concept of borders, borders which are invisible to nature, and therefore the beauty of nature spills over these lines.

Now, using Northern Ireland Screen's Digital Film Archive, Eoin has reinterpreted ‘Arrival’, one of the standout tracks from the Borders album. Looking anew at his own work, through the lens of the films within the archive, this is an exciting visual reimagining.

Eoin spoke about his experience on the project -

‘When you're handed hours and hours of archive footage that has been lovingly digitised by the folks at Northern Ireland Screen… it’s kind of hard to know where to start.

‘Borders’ the album had a really strong connection to nature and its beauty - shapes in the Earth that were only visible from high above.  So, I immediately looked for landscapes, lines in the ground, beaches, forests, mountains - natural borders. Quite often it was the B-roll that I fell in love with rather than the main footage. I found film of tormenting seas in a storm news story from years ago, as well as a struggling runner - for me, immediately drawing a comparison to the struggle refugees are facing today, due to lines that were drawn on maps a long time ago. Archives are a fascinating insight into times gone by. There’s a lot to be learned from them if we watch with an open and empathetic mind.’

Watch the other films in the anthology here