We are delighted to announce that on the 15th October we welcome Hoolan Ensemble from Scotland to join us for an evening of silent film accompanied by live music.

‘Le regard’ – An evening of women in surrealist silent film, accompanied by live experimental scores.

The Hoolan Ensemble – a collective of composers and instrumentalists studying at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, dedicated to commissioning and performing new music, and collaborating with other art forms.

In Mid-October they will be touring ‘Le regard’ to 5 cinemas and arts venues across Scotland and the North of England.

The event will consist of two experimental film screenings by female directors, accompanied onstage by new scores composed by ensemble members Nancy Johnstone and Niall Docherty.

The first, Germaine Dulac’s subversive 1928 classic The Seashell and the Clergyman, is a dreamlike tale of male sexual obsession mischievously presented from a razor-sharp feminist perspective. Widely regarded as the first film ever to use surrealist editing techniques, it caused a riot at its Paris premiére and retains a brilliant sense of modernity almost a hundred years after its creation.

The second film Foreign Body, a brand-new short directed by emerging Irish-Czech filmmaker Sára Ní Eithir, explores themes of self-objectification, alienation and fetishisation in order to reveal the struggle of being in a female body today. Riffing on the poetic imagery and daring visual techniques of Dulac’s Seashell, Eithir creates a stirring 21st century response to the 1928 masterpiece by recontextualising these in contemporary film practice.

The two beautifully atmospheric scores will be played by a distinctive instrumental line-up of wind ensemble, guitar and electronics, with the evening also including two short talks discussing the fascinating history of women in film that inspired the project and the process of making the new film.

Tickets are £7 each, these can be purchases online or from the plaza box office.