Part documentary, part reverie,
I Am Belfast is Mark Cousins’ film exploration of the city he calls home.

Incorporating contemporary dream-like sequences, archival film and a haunting score by David Holmes, the film portrays the city in an ethereal light not usually associated with Belfast.

No stranger to the documentary essay form, Cousins (director of The Story of Film: An Odyssey) wanted to present the city in a way it hadn’t been seen before. He has created an unashamedly abstract and visually beautiful tapestry, but one which is politically engaged, where Belfast is embodied as a 10,000-year-old woman who has witnessed the Troubles but whose streets are now enlivened by the voices of the garrulous inhabitants.



Notes by Sunniva O’Flynn