feature: Cork Culture Night 2012 Does Film

It’s Culture Night all around Ireland tonight (21 Sep 2012) and if you’re still not sure what to go to, and you’re a film fan in Cork, then the folks organising Cork Culture Night have a treat for you. There are loads of venues featuring film including the Concert Hall Cinema at Cork City Hall.

There’s too much for me to highlight but I did notice that Cork Film Festival is showing three horror shorts from local film-makers in Cork City Hall from 10:30pm. As far as I can tell booking is not required, though is Cork Culture Night is anything like Dublin Culture Night, you’ll want to get there early to make sure you get in.

Here’s the press release highlighting some of the things that are going on and you can get more details in the film section of the Cork Culture Night website.

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION AT CORK CULTURE NIGHT 2012

– Cork Culture Night is director’s cut above the rest –

September 2012: Now in its fifth year, Cork Culture Night 2012 promises a sensory feast with a strong film-inspired focus celebrating the silver screen. From film scripts to sets, production, directors, actors, audiences, storyboards and scores, this year’s Cork Culture Night on Friday, September 21 brings the magic of movies to town.

Celebrating culture in all its guises, Cork Culture Night will host an eclectic selection of music, photography, theatre, arts, drama and film events, many with a cinematic twist.

Some of the most memorable motion picture moments will be projected onto the big screen in the Concert Hall Cinema at Cork City Hall with a selection of feature films being screened late into the night. Highlights include a special programme of movies with a Cork connection such as the recently TV premiered The Runway, the ever-popular The Wind that Shakes the Barley, and Enda Walsh’s Disco Pigs. Cork Film Festival will also take centre stage in the Concert Hall with Family Screenings of short films and a darkly disturbing, yet sometimes funny, programme of horror shorts.

Of Ruins and Light is a special outdoor screening programme on Cornmarket Street of 16mm experimental film works is curated by Esperanza Collado and Aoife Desmond of the Experimental Film Club, Dublin. Their chosen films present expanded representations of time and space; from the earthly to the celestial, from the transience of man’s structures on earth, to the vastness of the universe.

For a step back in time with an avant-garde angle, CIT’s Crawford College of Art and Design combines the old with the new in the Crawford 100 Conversazione. In this Culture Night special, old film reels are dusted off to show vintage footage along with an exhibition of film memorabilia. There will also be screenings of recent film and video art works by students at the college as well as ceramic and print workshops.

Over in the Cork City and County Archives, visitors will have the chance to explore classic movie-making equipment and to trace the history of film-making back through the cinematic ages, all seen through a Cork lens from venerated filmmaker Helen Prout’s collection.

Focusing on the visual, film and video students at St John’s College will present their interpretation of the Moving Image – a diverse fusion of images and story-telling approaches, as well as a selection of short films and documentaries.

Other highlights for film fans include Hollywood Night at Bishopstown Library where you’ll need to have the popcorn at the ready for a talk on the Golden Age of Cinema and interpretative readings from classic movies with author John McSweeney.

Screenings in UCC of the best of regionally produced short films by talented newcomers and established filmmakers will be presented on Culture Night by a collaborative effort between the Film Studies department at UCC and the organisers of the annual Schull Fastnet Short Film Festival – one not to be missed.

A documentary on sculptor Seamus Murphy and the remarkable skill with which he carved headstones will be screened at the Church of the Annunciation in Blackpool. Well known filmmaker Pádraig Trehy will present an introduction to his film, The Headstones of Seamus Murphy, and speak about how Murphy cut the beautiful headstones throughout his career to support himself in pre-subsidy Ireland.

The film buffs at Corona Cork Film Festival have created a pop-up cinema featuring Irish and international short films in mystery locations around the city. All will be revealed closer to the date but film fans could end up watching a horror movie in a haunted house, a black and white love story in a church, or a comedy classic in a car park. Keep an eye on the Cork Culture Night website for more details on www.culturenightcork.ie.

Segueing from the silver screen to studio, the visual production crew at Studio 5108 will open its doors to the public while they are shooting a live music video. Using specialised lighting and high-tech equipment used in the making of major motion pictures, the crew will show the process celebs go through to record their MTV-inspired music videos in this one-off public event. Get there early to ensure a good spot from which to see all the action.

While daytime animation workshops for children will be held at Civic Trust House, the building will be transformed at night into an international musical stage where artists from Cork living abroad will perform mind-blowing music in live two-way streamed performances from around the world.

Combining classic visuals with musical magic, electronica duo Horsemen Pass By will perform original scores from recut cult films at Cork City Hall. Using an aural assortment of synths, unsettling atmospherics, sampled horns and razor-edged guitars, the band will perform to a backdrop of sci-fi, zombie horror and the found footage genre of visuals. Special guests to round-off Culture Night on a high note include instrumental electronic/rock band Fear Stalks the Land! and electro-vocal melody makers Carried by the Waves.

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