The debut feature from eclectic Irish documentarian Paul Duane (Natan, 2013; While You Live, Shine, 2018; Best Before Death, 2019) sees him combine his wide array of interests to create a distinctly Irish entry to the folk horror canon. Anna (Simone Collins) and Aleks (Charlie Maher) travel around Ireland seeking out rare traditional songs, the lesser heard and known the better, that they can then sell at secretive and highly competitive auctions to interested parties. The enigmatic woman in charge of these events directs them to Rita Concannon (a striking cameo from Olwen Fouéré), the last in a line of women to have handed a song forbidden to men down through generations, one that has never been recorded. Aleks’s surreptitious taping of the song (co-written by Lankum’s Ian Lynch) sets in motion a spiralling, Stricklandesque series of cosmic events.

The screening on Friday 19th at 18.30 will be followed by a Q&A with director Paul Duane, actors Charlie Maher and Nigel O’Neill, and musician Ian Lynch of Lankum hosted by filmmaker Emer Reynolds.

Notes by Kevin Coyne