Short movies by Vivienne Dick (II)

The final programme dedicated to the work of Vivienne Dick brings together four short films that reflect the kaleidoscopic nature of the Irish filmmaker’s artistic practice. Across these works, Dick pays tribute to the artists who shaped her imagination and sensibility, turns her gaze to the landscape of the country where she grew up and to which she returned after her years in New York, and reflects on humanity’s voracious relationship with the only planet we call home.

Rothach (UK, 1986, 9’, Colour, HD video from Super-8 Film)

Filmed on 16mm in the Donegal countryside, Rothach is composed of a rhythmic series of pans across a barren rural landscape that recalls the setting for Michael Snow’s monumental work La Region Centrale. Unlike Snow’s rocky landscape, however, Dick’s film is filled with evidence of activity. Scenes of a child playing the fiddle are interspersed with shots of farm machinery and turf-cutting on the bog. Many of these images are strikingly picturesque and reminiscent of iconic Irish colour postcards. But the serenity of the location is gradually undercut, both by the soundtrack and by the uncanny presence of the same child in different locations. 

Visibility Moderate (USA, 1981, 38’, HD Video from Super-8mm)

Vivienne Dick’s first film after the New York series takes her back to her native Ireland. Using Super 8 film as a parody of the ‘travelogue’ or home-movie style film, Dick takes a expatriate, tourist look at her homeland. The narrative follows Margaret Ann Irinsky as the American tourist trekking from a Dublin populated by Hare Krishnas and rock music, to the horse-drawn carriages in the west of Ireland and the kissing of the Blarney stone. The quaint perception of Ireland and the Americanization of the native culture are contrasted with interviews from sectarian prisoners and footage of political marches. 

Red Moon Rising (IE, 2015, 15’, Colour, HD video) 

A celebration of the carnivalesque, through dance, performance and the spoken word.The film reaches towards a renewal of our embodiment with the Earth as a response to a belief in invincibility, and the desire of Man to dominate the planets. A red moon is both a beacon, and a warning.

Felis Catus (IE, 2016, 5’30’’, Colour, HD video) 

A short film about a domestic cat which also comments on homo sapiens, the most predatory and destructive animal on earth.