Three or four years ago, my brother surprised me by having our families old mini-DV tapes scanned. In 1993 we got our hands on a camcorder, and a tiny bundle of tapes. Recorded over and over between 1993 and 1994 (when I broke the Sony’s motor manually creating stop motion) these tapes held a treasure of strange strained Catholic Ireland. Sports days, religious ceremonies, terrible first efforts at filmmaking, and a few glimpses of the sour buffet that was our family home. Recently I felt compelled to re-examine these tapes. Inspired by a wonderful little filmmaking event in Dublin, I worked to create something that would communicate something of the isolation and desperation of that time. The result is a five minute film entitled Benediction.

The film will be shown next Tuesday, 7PM at Unit 44 / Kirkos in Dublin 7, as part of the monthly Fanvid experimental film night. Fanvid is a brilliant, community organised event which has opened my eyes to some of the more adventurous stuff happening in Dublin filmmaking. It’s also a place where anyone can curate an event, and I’ll be running my own at the end of next month, featuring some of my favourite Berlin independent filmmakers. More information on that to follow.