2023 marks the fourth consecutive year of aemi and GAZE working together to present a programme of moving image work by artists and experimental filmmakers as part of the festival. This packed line-up moves from the earthly to the celestial to assert political dissent, express longing and physical desire, evoke the stranger facets of human intimacy and celebrate the healing strength of joy, community and creativity. As a programme made up entirely of brand new work this screening hopefully says something about the specifics of this often contradictory moment in time and the more lucid perspectives it can sometimes give us on the past, in all its chaos and complexity.

Stay after the screening to hear aemi in conversation about their film selection and their broader work.

 aemi is an Arts Council-funded organisation that supports and exhibits artist and experimental film. For more information visit www.aemi.ie

• WHERE’S DANNY? – Dir. Amy Pennington. 15 mins, UK. Drawing upon the media scandal headlined “GAY SANTA GETS SACK” Amy Pennington drags up as a reporter to explore this hyperlocalised piece of queer history.
• VAGARY – Dir. Ross G. Hewitt. 2 mins, USA. Through the remembrance of a dream, a teenage boy discovers his attraction to a male college student.
• PET WORLD – Dirs. Sofia Theodore-Pierce & Grace Mitchell. 14 mins, USA. Inspired by Amy Hempel’s short story collection, Reasons to Live, and the work of poet Bernadette Mayer, an ensemble cast riffs on what we might discover about intimacy in parking lots.
• FLARE – Dir. Kate Blamire. 27 mins, Germany. Flare is a film made in alignment with the tides of artist Kate Blamire’s illness and capacities, and is testament to the healing strength of joy, community, and creativity.
• PORCUPINE – Dirs. Nicolas Graux & Trương Minh Quý. 12 mins, Belgium-Singapore-Vietnam. In an abandoned hospital, ghosts still linger, strangers come and go.
• THE CESSPOOL OF RAPTURE – Dir. Joseph Noonan-Ganley. 17 mins, Ireland-UK, 2017. English-American couturier Charles James’s (1906-1978) spoken theories of sexuality, and fashion, in-between camera work that journeys through zippers, stains, rips, abrasions, openings, and closings in a series of his dresses.
• BIGGER ON THE INSIDE – Dir. Angelo Madsen Minax. 11 mins, USA. Outer and inner space collapse in Angelo Madsen Minax’s cosmic essay film, which diffracts feelings, memories, and longings during a blurry sojourn in a remote cabin in the woods.

IFI Age Recommendation: 18+

Screening as part of GAZE 2023.