Hoolan Ensemble is a recently formed collective of musicians and composers dedicated to performing innovative and unusual contemporary music, and to collaborating with other art forms. Join them for an electrifying evening of live music and film inspired by the artistic achievements of women in early cinema. The event will consist of two experimental film screenings by female directors, accompanied onstage by new scores composed by ensemble members Nancy Johnstone and Niall Docherty.
The films
Germaine Dulac’s subversive 1928 classic The Seashell and the Clergyman, is a dreamlike tale of male sexual obsession mischievously presented from a razor-sharp feminist perspective. The second film Foreign Body, a brand-new short directed by emerging Irish-Czech filmmaker Sára Ní Eithir, explores themes of self-objectification, alienation and fetishisation in order to reveal the struggle of being in a female body today. Riffing on the poetic imagery and daring visual techniques of Dulac’s Seashell, Eithir creates a stirring 21st century response to the 1928 masterpiece.
The music
The two beautifully atmospheric scores will be played by a distinctive instrumental line-up of wind ensemble, guitar and electronics, with the evening also including two short talks discussing the fascinating history that inspired the project and the process of making the new film.
Programme
Pre-performance talk: Women in Early Cinema
The Seashell and The Clergyman (1928) dir. Germaine Dulac
Interval
Foreign Body (2024) dir. Sara Ní Eithir
Post-performance interview
Duration 3 hours
THE SEASHELL AND THE CLERGYMAN
Director: Germaine Dulac
Year: 1928
Length:
FOREIGN BODY
Director: Sára Ní Eithir
Year: 2024
Length:
Performers:
Hoolan Ensemble; Molly Sellors & Niall Docherty (Co-Directors)
Composers:
Niall Docherty & Nancy Woodrow-Johnstone
Un Regard is a Hoolan Ensemble production, supported by Northern Silents.