Pea Arts About

In March 2012 I introduced a screening of Ordet/The Word (dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1955) at the Queen's Film Theatre, Belfast. It's all a blur, really, and I can't remember anything to tell you about it. I was becoming very strained, running out of money and being flooded by rejection just months after the high of passing and very quickly graduating with my PhD. The three years of intesnive hard work in that moment felt as if they'd been for nothing. I imagine that was my state of mind when preparing these notes. Today I know that things just are what they are and don't inherently have a purpose.   Ordet intro Carl Theodor Dreyer (b. 1889) of Swedish decent but grew up in a Danish foster home and was adopted by a strict Protestant family. 26yrs after The Passion of Joan of Arc he depicted spirituality even more piously in Ordet/The Word (1955). The film-maker based Ordet on a play by Kaj Munk, which he praised for its ‘astonishing courage’. It tells a tale of

On the morning of Wednesday 23 November 2011 - the day after my PhD viva voce (big scary conversation with examiners who decide whether you're awarded the degree), and two days after my 27th birthday - I introduced a screening of Tim Burton's short animation Vincent (1982) and Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (dir. Henry Selick, 1993) at the Queen's Film Theatre in Belfast put on especially for school groups. Although the timing was ridiculous, I jumped at the chance to perform this introduction. The Nightmare Before Christmas has always been special to me. It came out shortly after my dad died, and, for all its problems, it was a comfort and a mainstay for me in those early years. I have seen it more times that I can tell you. I know the whole film almost word-for-word, beat-for-beat. Sally the rag doll has been a profound influence. At a major time in my life with such a big absence, it was meaningful to draw my personal and professional lives together, eve

In May 2012 I introduced a screening of Elles (dir. Malgorzata Szumowska, 2011) at the Queen's Film Theatre in Belfast and led a discussion afterwards. An uncomfortable topic, particularly in a place awash with religious conservatism, the film follows a seasoned journalist played by Juliet Binoche as she works on a story about young women, mostly students, choosing to enter sex work. It was a strange time for me. After months of intensive job hunting post-PhD (graduated December 2011) I had just landed a minimum-wage part-time job in a shop. Oh the relief that something had worked out. I was desperate by this stage, and what I was prepared to do to survive had been very much on my mind.  Marion Campbell who was then QFT's Education & Outreach Officer had me doing quiet few introductions that year. She was looking out for me and I didn't appreciate her enough. I became so wrapped up in the academic career path that I lost sight of the other types of opportunity she opene

Climate letter challenge Prompt 1: At the top of my mind about climate and ecological change is... deep anxiety that collectively we're not doing enough. There's too much pressure on individuals. We do all have a role to play, but what's within our power is so small compared to the huge corporate polluters and other huge corporations that prop them up and benefit from their polluting. So there's me mithering about getting refills from an inconvenient location that I can't really afford rather than buying things in more plastic bottles that are unlikely to get recycled, or be recycled more than once if they are, but which are fine and affordable. Or being freezing all the time because of the guilt of both polluting the atmostphere with gas or fire smoke, plus the expense. And don't even start me on the green-washing companies are doing. They pander to what's popular and desired and don't actually address the problem. I'm cross about those Boody bras I