Embedded Documentary: Fierce Quiet Films
Presentation and Screening 27.11.2024
Since 2019, Mieke Vanmechelen and Michael Holly have collaborated on a series of nonfiction films focusing on Irish culture, ecologies and communities. Central to their approach is a long-term, close, embedded relationship with their subject. Their 2022 feature documentary Hungry Hill delves into the lives of a community of Beara Peninsula sheep farmers grappling with tough terrain, societal shifts, and globalization. They are currently in post-production on their second feature documentary, IMMRÁM, which follows a charismatic family at the centre of an alternative community of indigenous Irish culture revivalists.
For the Centre for Documentary Research, Vanmechelen and Holly will present excerpt screenings of Hungry Hill and exclusive preview excerpts from IMMRÁM. The presentation will feature a discussion about their use archive material, long-engagement and sound design to create a particular sensory audience experience in their films.
Mieke Vanmechelen is an artist and hill farmer based between the Firestation Artist Studios in Dublin and Beara Peninsula. Her practice involves being embedded in and responding to her immediate environment. Dissolving boundaries between documentary and narrative-oriented film she deploys place, animals and people as embodied investigative tools.
Michael Holly is an artist, filmmaker, researcher and Lecturer in Film Practice at Queen’s University Belfast. His work spans contemporary installation art and documentary filmmaking, often investigating contemporary politics, ecologies and social identities.
Hungry Hill links:
Irish Independent: https://www.independent.ie/farming/sheep/how-this-film-making-hill-farmer-is-putting-the-spotlight-on-an-ancient-way-of-life-thats-under-threat/a275015192.html
Delightful Docs/ Vision du Reel: https://shows.acast.com/delightful-docs/episodes/visions-du-reel-hungry-hill
RTÉ Radio Arena interview: https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22301627/
Irish Examiner: https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/artsandculture/arid-41201185.html