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Director
Mark Cousins
Credits
Producer: Michele Devlin
Music: David Holmes
Category
Documentary
Commissioned as part of Belfast 2024, a year-long celebration of arts and culture, The Hearth is an ambitious documentary project led by Belfast Film Festival. The festival invited residents across the city to contribute to a collective portrait of Belfast through storytelling and filmmaking workshops in schools, community spaces, and individual submissions. The result is a vivid self-portrait of the city in 2024, shaped by the voices and experiences of its people. Under the creative direction of award-winning filmmaker Mark Cousins (The Story of Looking, The Story of Film), more than 20 hours of footage from 330 participants were distilled into a 75-minute feature. The Hearth brings together 121 faces and voices in a mosaic of Belfast life—funny, poignant, and deeply human. Filmed in pubs, playgrounds, homes, and community centres using everything from smartphones to professional cameras, the documentary captures the city’s spirit in all its complexity. From a Ladies Darts Team to veterans, schoolchildren to football supporters, and even a donkey in the east and a stuffed parrot in the west, the film reflects the changing face of Belfast in 2024.
75 minutes, Northern Ireland, 2024, Colour
BLUE MOON 14.00, 20.50
BUGONIA 15.50 (35mm)
DIE MY LOVE 20.30
HORSESHOE 16.00, 18.30 (+ Q&A)
IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT 13.30, 18.10
L’ATALANTE 16.10
PILLION 13.40, 20.40
SUNSET BOULEVARD (75th ANNIVERSARY RE-RELEASE) 18.20
The IFI is supported by The Arts Council