SUMMER / AUTUMN 2009

IRISH / ARABIAN AVANT-GARDE FILM TOUR

This year Solus have developed an ongoing exchange programme between independent Irish film-makers and Middle Eastern and African film-makers. The incoming arm of this project is a programme of new experimental work from the Middle East and Africa touring Ireland to five venues beginning in Galway in September and culminating with festivals in Dublin in October and Wicklow in November. The outgoing arm of this project is the presentation of a new programme of Irish experimental and short films in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria in Egypt in September, followed by screenings and workshops in Tunisia and Mauritania in October / November.

Given that our collaborators and hosts are in countries all of which are muslim and Arab speaking, we thought an 'Irish / Arabian' exchange was the simplest way to title the overall 'tour'.

See 'upcoming' for more details.

But first there is the Kratkofil Festival in Banja Luka, Bosnia-Herzegovina

JUNE 16 - 20

KRATKOFIL: http://www.kratkofil.org

Also see: upcoming

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Solus is an independent film collective and platform for film-makers working in Super-8mm / 16mm and DV. The group was formed in 1998 in Dublin, Ireland.  

Solus has the dual aim of showing Irish short and avant-garde films abroad and international short and avant-garde films in Ireland. The first programme Solus compiled was screened in the Irish Film Center’s ‘First Cut’ in December 1998, and was then brought to Anthology Film Archives in New York in May 1999. In ‘Ocularis’, an independent venue also in New York which recently had a 10 year retrospective in MOMA, this programme was modified as ‘Flix & Kicks’. Flix & Kicks premiered new work by Solus members and invited guests in super-8mm, 16mm & VHS. Then Xeno, presented by BAM Cinematek ( Brooklyn Academy of Music ) & the New York Underground Film Festival, presented a sampling of do-it-yourself shorts by young Irish film-makers and international members of Solus. Described as “ Low budget but serious”, “contemplative, rockin’, atmospheric and clever”, it featured Moira Tierney and Giles Packham’s ‘Ride City’, a twin-screened tavelogue through an urban horseshow

 

and the Brooklyn shot ‘Seven Ways ‘Til Sunday’, winner of the Best New Irish Short at the Cork Film Festival.

 

In 2005 a new Solus programme was compiled for The Contemporary Arts Centre in St.Petersburg. This programme united some of the original members of Solus with a group of film-makers from Feenish Productions in Dublin. The Russian programme was compiled by Moira Tierney and Masha Godovannaya. This programme was then adapted, with the addition of some Japanese and Canadian films, for another Anthology Film Archives programme in May 2006. This screening featured work from the following film-makers;

Moira Tierney ( Ireland / US ), David Stalling ( Germany ), Anthony Kelly ( Ireland ), Zoe Greenberg ( Canada ), Dennis Kenny ( Ireland ), Alan Lambert ( Ireland ), Donal O’Ceilleachair ( Ireland / US ), Stom Sogo ( Japan ), Masha Godovannaya ( Russia ). Solus also programmed the Irish Animations for ‘Animae Caribe – Animation and New Media Festival’ in Trinidad in October 2007. The current programme was screened in Marseilles in January, Luxor Unversity, Egypt in April and was launched in New York in November.

 

AVAILABLE NOW:

SOLUS DVD VOLUME 1