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Thanks to Andrew's parents adding us to their Netflix account we've been catching up on recent films released on the platform, notably Glass Onion (dir. Rian Johnson, 2022) and The Wonder (dir. Sebastián Lelio, 2022). The Knives Out films, as enjoyable as I find them, don't need any help from me. The Wonder , however, is a film I feel ought to research and write about, and it is that feeling moreso than the film itself that I'll share thoughts about for now. In 2016 while I was a fixed-term lecturer in film at Lancaster University I designed a project with which to apply for a Leverhulme early career fellowship in the hopes of getting myself a job remaining there and developing my career in a more solid direction. It was a study of contemporary transregional moving image production across Britain and Ireland. It would have been an expansion of my PhD research on these practices in Northern Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 out to and across the other smal...

You know the hit is coming and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Your body braces automatically even though logic dictates it won’t make any difference. The torrent is coming at you hard and fast. You are vulnerable. Helpless. Perhaps your slight cower is an attempt at self-comfort and assurance. You did all you could. Broader events were beyond your control. It’s not your fault. You’re collateral damage, and it means nothing about you. It is natural to curl into yourself because who else can you rely on? A saviour, a hero, surely couldn’t make it in time.   Andromeda and the Sea Monster , Damien Hirst, 2011, image June 2017 Andromeda and the Sea Monster is a monumental sculpture in blue bronze depicting a young naked woman chained to a rock face, her head angled off to her right and her mouth open in a horrific silent scream, mirroring the wide, toothy mouths of hungry sea creatures frozen in time and space as they surge at her. You could only see the woman’s scream if ...

  Cronos Devouring his Children , Damien Hirst, 2011, image from Pinterest I remembered his eyes bulging as he tore his children apart. They were actually closed and his mouth gaped. You can almost hear the yells of him. Perhaps my memory of the bulging eyes and manic flesh eating came from an equally graphic painting rather than this sculpture. Knowing me, it was of a totally different character if so. Much of the confronting horror of Cronos Devouring his Children is obscured by coral, with enough of the scene visible that Cronos’s headless young son stretched between his hands and other children gripping his knees evoke the debauched fuller picture. There are other figures around the mounded base of the sculpture, and the guide text assures me that baby Zeus, who would go on to liberate his siblings from inside of his father and later destroy him in the Olympians’ war against the Titans, is present, but I can’t verify this for myself from the photos at my disposal. As happens...

I have the great pleasure of reporting from Lausanne, Switzerland, this week. I've been here giving a guest seminar for my friend Jenn's MA linguistics module on language in TV and film. We did this before but via Zoom during lockdown, and this time everything worked out so I could come in person.  My task was to cover film stylistics and the terminology used in moving image/audiovisual analysis. I also wanted to link to topics such as accent and ethnicity covered elsewhere in the module. My go-to to exemplify all this is No (dir. Pablo Larraín, 2012) as it is a meeting place for television and cinema, the main character (René Saavedra played by Gael Garcia Bernal) has returned from exile to Mexico and is marked as not quite Chilean by his accent, there is a notable absent presence of Chile's indigenous peoples, and it is one of those films whose aesthetics directly impacted by the recording apparatus and the way it has been edited make it an excellent candidate for demonst...

Post-Agreement Cinema: The Northern Ireland Conflict in Contemporary British and Irish Screen Cultures Abstract Film and television production in Northern Ireland has experienced significant shifts since the Peace Agreement was signed in 1998. During this time, major changes in views of the Northern Ireland conflict in other parts of the British Isles have emerged. This project will analyse the landscape of contemporary film and television across the UK and Ireland with a particular focus on inter-regional productions that engage with the conflict’s legacy. As well as major publications and a vlog, outputs will include curating an exhibition of visual art relevant to the project and a series of film screenings with talks. Details of current and past research My research interests lie in contemporary film and visual culture focusing on conflict and post-conflict themes. I am drawn to convergences between cinema and visual art, particularly inv...

I was delighted to learn of the Deputy Director post as this is exactly the opportunity I am seeking to take a more active role in the arts and culture sector. I am interested in the Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival as I am drawn to areas of convergence between cinema and the visual arts. An experienced film academic, I have extensive knowledge of contemporary film and visual art as demonstrated in my peer-reviewed publications, contributions to arts magazines, making Audiovisual Cultures Podcast and holding degrees in the field. As a skilled administrator and networker with a passion for facilitating others’ development, I will excel in this post. My experience in a comparable role is shown in my directorship of Cosy Pea Pod, the creative company under which I produce Audiovisual Cultures , a film, arts and media podcast featuring analysis of cultural works and interviews with a wide range of practitioners, including artists, filmmakers and organisers of film festivals and symp...

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...