The First Fortnight Mental Health Art & Culture Festival starts this weekend, with over 60 events taking place nationwide from January 5th – 14th.
For over a decade the arts-based mental health charity has organised the festival in the first two weeks of the year aimed at challenging the stigma around mental health. With events all across the arts, from cabaret to yoga, music and theatre, there are no shortage of events to attend to, including plenty of film screening events in the fair city of film.
The film Silent Men will be showing tomorrow 4th January AT 3.30pm at the IFI, followed by a Q&A from filmmaker Duncan Cowles. The BAFTA winner’s film is an ‘awkward art of expressing emotion’, blending therapy and a road trip, to ask men how they open up and to confront his own challenges with intimacy and vulnerability. With raw honesty and deadpan humour, Silent Men dives into masculinity’s less-discussed aspects, tackling physical and mental health while questioning traditional norms and exploring alternative ways to communicate and heal.
Also at the IFI on the 5th, Alan Gilsenan’s doc The Days of Trees will be on. Tomás, a middle-aged film producer, embarks on a journey of discovery with his friend and colleague, film director, Alan. As they progress, we witness first-hand Tomás’s unearthing of fresh and startling childhood happenings which had somehow eluded his memory. What follows is a profound pilgrimage towards uncovering how sporadic crises in adulthood, amidst an otherwise ‘normal’ life, had their roots in sophisticated sexual abuse by Christian Brothers in the late 1960s. The film will also be screening for the festival across the country, in Longford, Portlaoise, Sligo, Kildare, Kerry, and Galway.
On Saturday 8th January at St Patrick’s University Hospital, Dublin, music doc Love Yourself Today will be showing, followed by a post show discussion with Damien Dempsey and First Fortnight CEO Maria Fleming. Love Yourself Today is a film about music, nature and gratitude and these things are deeply connected. It centres around singer songwriter Damien Dempsey but also turns the lens onto his fans. Every Christmas in Dublin, the crowds gather for Damo’s gig at Vicar Street. For many, these shows have become a cathartic ritual, a safe space where emotions can be laid bare. Through the prism of the concert, we meet Dempsey and three members of the audience. We hear their stories, unravel their grief and find the light in the darkness through communal art. With themes of addiction, loss but also hope and positivity. Part documentary, part concert film, Love Yourself Today is an emotive celebration of modern spirituality and the power of music to heal.
On 9th January the National Gallery Ireland will be hosting a screening of documentary Don’t Forget to Remember as part of a dynamic and inclusive public programme exploring dementia through art. In collaboration with filmmaker, Ross Killeen, and artist, Asbestos, this first day will see a Q&A talk following the screening of their emotional tribute to memory. Then on the Friday through Sunday, blackboards from the film will be totally erased during artistic performances and interventions from Asbestos in the Education Studio, as part of an interactive art space with further activities including discursive sessions, creative workshops, existing Gallery supports for people with dementia and their carers, and broadly inclusive opportunities for Gallery visitors to develop their awareness of dementia. Tickets are €8 and available now.
That same weekend, in association with the Alliance Française Network and the French Embassy in Ireland, you can experience online the poignant film This Life of Mine (Ma Vie Ma Gueule), directed by the late Sophie Fillières. Barberie Bichette, known to her biggest despair as Barbie, may have been beautiful, a good mother, a reliable colleague, a great lover, yes, perhaps… but that was before she predictably and inevitably turned 55 (and much more to come!). Now, things are getting darker, sometimes violent and often absurd. How then will she deal with her own self, others, and simply life in general?
There are more First Fortnight film events across the island. Up the road in Bray, there will be a screening of Saoirse Ronan’s film The Outrun at the Mermaid Arts Centre, while Vue in Limerick will host a showing of The No Show. See more info a the First Fortnight website.