Films at Bloomsday Film Festival 2022
Sky Hawkins performs "A letter to remind myself who I am" by Shane Koyczan, directed by Matthew Thompson.
We're pleased to share that nine of our poem films have been selected to be screened at this June's Bloomsday Film Festival in Dublin, Ireland.
A tradition in Dublin since 1954, the Bloomsday Festival honors the work of James Joyce each year on June 16th. This marks the anniversary of the date in 1904 in which the fictional events of Joyce's novel Ulysses unfold, seen through the eyes of its protagonist, Leopold Bloom. The Bloomsday Film Festival, now in its third year, seeks to celebrate cinema, literature, and artistic innovation as part of the broader Festival, inspired by the legacy of the avant-garde, future-facing Joyce.
Our film offerings feature performances by poets Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi, Bernard Ferguson, Sky Hawkins, Padraig Regan, Stephen Sexton, and Adeeba Shahid Talukder and by actors Venetia Bowe, Clare Dunne, and Tommy Tiernan, showcasing creative voices from the US, UK, and Ireland. They were created variously with our producing partners 92Y, Druid, Poet in the City, and Poetry Ireland, each of whom we've now collaborated with on multiple distinctive film series.
Still from "Ghazal for the Diaspora," directed by Eric Felipe-Barkin.
Four of our films will be screened as part of the Poetry Shorts program in the Volta Room at the James Joyce Centre on the afternoon of Monday, June 13th:
Poetry and Literature Shorts Programme 1
June 13th, 1pm
- Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi - "Our Hands Like Rain" (dir. Matthew Thompson)
Poetry and Literature Shorts Programme 2
June 13th, 3:30 pm
- Austin Clarke - "The Echo at Coole" - read by Tommy Tiernan (dir. Matthew Thompson)
- Faisal Mohyuddin - "Ghazal for the Diaspora" - read by Adeeba Shahid Talukder (dir. Eric Felipe-Barkin)
- Shane Koyczan - "A letter to remind myself who I am" - read by Sky Hawkins (dir. Matthew Thompson)
Five films will be screened online only, June 16th–23rd:
- Bernard Ferguson - "poem to be read at the end of a year" (dir. Jean Coleman)
- Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin - "The Architectural Metaphor" - read by Venetia Bowe (dir. Matthew Thompson)
- Padraig Regan - "A Pumpkin" (dir. Matthew Thompson)
- Paula Meehan - "This is not a confessional poem" - read by Clare Dunne (dir. Matthew Thompson)
- Stephen Sexton - "Segue" (dir. Matthew Thompson)
The four films to be screened at Poetry Shorts will also be aired digitally. We will share digital screening details here as they are confirmed.
We are honored to have our films so well-represented at this exciting international event, and we hope you'll join us in celebrating Joyce and the breadth of global literature at their screenings.