Over the past few months I’ve been attending the Dublin experimental film night Fanvid. The event, run Unit 44 / Kirkos, one of the last surviving independent art spaces in Dublin plays host to a diverse array of experimental films. Most eschew narrative, many are mixed media often created by fine art graduates or musicians. It’s been an inspiring place for me to be expose to new work that radically challenges my ideas of what film can be. Recent evenings have featured hilarious work from artist Rioghnach Hardiman, strange meditative pieces from composer Neil Quigley, and a heartbreaking home movie from the West Bank discovered by MTL Collective. It’s a beautiful event, as warm and social as it is creatively unhinged.

The fanvid crew have been kind enough to let me curate an evening of some of my favourite Berlin filmmakers. Folks like Jean Michel Brawand, Danting Chen and Abbas Ayyoubi were wonderful collaborators and friends to me while I lived in the city. Taken together their work seems to represent a return to informal realism, some kind of Berlin New Wave. Films exploring intimacy, disconnection and the experience of the outsider.

The films are long for the most part – up to 20 minutes each, so the event will be more drop in drop out than the usual hyperkinetic fanvid. I’m hoping the creative collision will be as inspiring for the local audience as I’ve found the night to be.

Fanvid Berlin takes place at Unit 44, 44 Park Shopping Centre, Prussia St, Dublin, D07 AE10. Tuesday 30th July 7PM – 9:30PM.

Poster by Nicole O’Connor.