Wexford Documentary Film Festival - Friday 22nd – Sunday 24th Sept 2017

wexford | arts and media | press release Tuesday September 12, 2017 12:23 by Wexford Documentary

OVER 30 AMAZING DOCUMENTARIES ON 3 SCREENS OVER 3 DAYS!

This September sees the much-anticipated return of The 5th Wexford Documentary Film Festival, a jam-packed 3-day festival of international, national, and local films. The festival takes place in the picturesque fishing village of Kilmore Quay, County Wexford from Friday 22nd – Sunday 24th September 2017. Screening of films will be in the local Stella Maris Centre, and in many interesting and unexpected off-site venues throughout the village. The festival includes post screenings Q&As with international directors, discussions, lively debates, and a variety of film workshops. The Wexford Documentary film festival is gaining strength and popularity, by providing the public with the opportunity to see award winning national and international documentary films and 2017 is no exception!

The theme for the 2017 festival is ‘Community’ and as always with an emphasis on screening films that powerfully explore social, political, and environmental concerns. The films show just how broad the concept of community can be, and how important it is for us all to feel part of a community, whatever it may look like.

We want our films to be accessible to as many people as possible, so we have ensured all film screenings and workshops are free

However, as numbers to some events are limited, tickets to events should be booked in advance through Eventbrite or our website

https://www.eventbrite.ie/o/wexford-documentary-film-fe...32851
http://wexforddocumentaryfilmfestival.ie/booking/

Opening Night Friday 22nd Sept 2017

To celebrate the opening of the 5th Wexford Documentary Film Festival there will be a drum parade through the village of Kilmore Quay! We are delighted to announce that the festival has secured the Irish premier of ‘We The Workers’ by award winning Chinese director Huang WenHai, who will be in attendence for a post screening discussion

6.30pm on Friday sees the Official opening of Festival with the Irish Premiere of the extraordinary Chinese film We the Workers. After an imposing opening in which Chinese labourers work on a giant metal construction, the documentary switches to the seamier side of the Chinese economic miracle – the exploitation of hundreds of millions of workers. Filmed between 2009 and 2015, mainly in the industrial heartland of south China, this film follows labour activists helping workers to negotiate with local officials and factory owners over wages and working conditions. Together they struggle to strengthen worker solidarity in the face of threats, attacks, detention and pressures from police and employers. In the process we are shown the workers’ vital sense of justice, their resistance to owners who are only interested in profits, and how they escape becoming victims.

Director: Huang Wenhai • China • 2017
79 mins • Chinese with English subtitles

At 9.30pm there will be a post screening discussion with director Huang Wenhai, Jimmy Kelly of Unite the union and Gino Kenny TD, People Before Profit Alliance.

Some other film highlights throughout the weekend include

Saturday @ 4pm - Shot In The Dark

A blind person is probably the least person you’d expect to be a photographer. SHOT IN THE DARK is an intimate portrait of three successful artists who have one thing in common: visual impairment as a starting point for their visual explorations. Watching SHOT IN THE DARK will introduce three extraordinary people. These blind artists insist on participating in the world of visuals. At the same time they question this world with their photographic work, in which nothing is taken for granted. This film poses fundamental questions about seeing and the imagination and enriches our understanding of perception and creation. We all close our eyes in sleep, the sighted and blind alike, and in our dreams – we see.

Please note that this film with have an audio description suitable for people with visual impairment

Director: Frank Amann • Germany • 2016

Post screening discussion with Director Frank Amann and filmmaker Laura Way.

Saturday @ 8.15pm - A New Economy

A New Economy is feature documentary about people making a fresh start towards building a new economy. Watch as several organizations move towards a more cooperative future by experimenting with open and non-traditional business models. By rewarding human effort fairly and proportionately instead of obsessing about the bottom line, these revolutionary businesses are creating a more people-friendly future, creating new ways to make money and make it sustainably.

Post screening discussion with John Power from the Kilmore Quay Fishermens Co-Op and a representative from Callan Camphill Community Coop Housing project Nimble Spaces.

Sunday @ 3.30pm - The Grown Ups

For almost their entire lives a group of forty-something classmates have grown up together and are reaching the age of 50 with varying degrees of frustration. Anita, Rita, Ricardo and Andrés feel that the school they attend for people with Down Syndrome is confining; they long for new challenges, greater independence, and more personal space. Director Maite Alberdi’s observational approach is warm and compassionate, allowing the characters to voice their innermost longings and aspirations. It also perfectly captures the tragic state of limbo in which they are stuck: mature enough to want the pressures and privileges of independent adulthood, yet emotionally and financially ill-equipped to pursue them alone—and ultimately failed by a system that treats them as homogeneously disabled rather than as individuals. Their engaging story is a mixture of heartache and humor, and hope for greater understanding of people with Down Syndrome, or anyone whose perceptions and abilities are different from “the norm.”

Director: Maite Alberdi • Chile, Netherlands, France • 2016 •

Spanish with English Subtitles

Post screening discussion with members of Callan’s KCAT Equinox Theatre.

Saturday @ 3.30pm - Pavlensky Man And Might

In the course of his performances, the Russian political artist Pyotr Pavlensky has sewn up his mouth, nailed his scrotum to Red Square, and set fire to the door of the headquarters of the Russian secret service, to protest against “state terror”. He spent seven months in prison. The film shows Pyotr Pavlensky and his preoccupation with the liberty of the individual confronted by the power of the state.
Director: Irene Langemann • Germany • 2016
Russian with English subtitles

New additions this year:

Short films will be shown in unexpected off site venues

A film installation in Kilmore Quay village “I watched the white dogs of the dawn” by Els Deviost. The work gathers interviews, stories and impressions of local fishermen and women in Kilmore Quay, Duncannon and Dunmore East.

Workshops – film making with Dick Donaghue; - pocket film making with Terence White; - Acting with Conor Madden

Many Irish Media & Film graduates – including those from Enniscorthy Vocational College continue their studies at Aberystwyth University in Wales (over 160 students from Enniscorthy to date). WDFF aims to encourage students and therefore have initiated a link with Aberystwyth Media Department. This year students from Wales will travel to the festival and bring 3 of their short movies for us to enjoy.

There will be 3 cinema screens at the Stella Maris Centre

5th Wexford Documentary Film Festival Brochure 6.25 Mb