A film made completely from footage captured by and featuring the people of Belfast is set to hit the big screen next month as Belfast Film Festival premieres The Hearth.
The film’s title, The Hearth, reflects the project’s ambition: to portray life’s everyday stories and moments on film in the same spirit as a shared conversation by the fireside. Under the creative lead of award winning documentary filmmaker Mark Cousins, in excess of 20 hours of footage has been edited into a 78 minute film featuring 100 of the 300 participants.
Earlier this year Belfast Film Festival put a call out for people living in Belfast to get involved in the project by filming something about life in Belfast in 2024. The project gathered footage from over 300 participants. The film was commissioned as part of Belfast 2024, a year-long celebration of arts and culture in Belfast.
The creative team working on The Hearth alongside Mark included Theatre director Paula McFetridge (Kabosh) and filmmaker Alison Millar (Lyra, 2022). David Holmes has created the original music and CEO of Belfast Film Festival Michele Devlin is lead producer.
The feature length movie is an experimental documentary that presents a self-portrait of Belfast in 2024, capturing the city’s unique character through the lens of its people. From a Ladies Darts Team to a group of veterans, schools and a football supporters, young and old, the film reflects the changing face of Belfast in 2024.
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EXHIBITION AND INSTALLATION
Our Faces of Belfast Exhibition, featuring pictures of every single one of our participants in ‘The Hearth’ film process, was shown in Belfast Exposed Art Gallery from 21st October to 24th November. The exhibition has now moved to St George’s market as part of the Belfast 2024 Our Stories Festival from 22 – 24 November from 10am until 2pm.
BELFAST DOCS
As part of this Belfast 2024 commission, we are delighted to present a community training series on documentary filmmaking. A number of talented local directors such as Alison Millar, Sean Murray and Gillian Callan will pair up with community organisations including The Anaka Collective, The Polish Sisterhood and Ardoyne Youth Club to make a series of short documentaries. The themes and ideas for the documentaries will come entirely from the groups and their interests and ideas, and the filmmakers will work alongside their group, guiding them step by step through the process of documentary filmmaking, from the initial inspiration or idea to the post production edit and finalising moment. This is a fantastic training opportunity for our groups and we cannot wait to share what they have created at the Docs Ireland festival for BFF in June 2025.
If you want to hear more about the project email us at thehearth@belfastfilmfestival.org
You can find out about all the amazing projects that make up Belfast 2024 here: https://www.belfastcity.gov.uk/belfast2024/home
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As part of our Belfast 2024 commission The Hearth and to take us through this post production phase we held a special event on 2nd November 2024 to learn a little more about the film industry by hearing directly from those who work within it through our special events…….
POV: Getting into Film
A Panel Discussion for ’The Hearth’ with Belfast Film Festival and Belfast 2024.
This moderated panel offered valuable insights on how to get started in the film industry from experienced professionals including Stacey Gregg, Valene Kane, Jonathan Harden, Martin McCann and Ryan and Andrew Tohill, Chaired by Journalist and Broadcaster William Crawley. Attendees will gain valuable knowledge on how to navigate the industry, build a network, and succeed in the competitive world of film.
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Our Guiding Principles:
The Hearth will be a self-portrait of Belfast on film.
To include every age, creed, race, class, sexuality, neurodiversity and physical ability diversity.
To show moments that move us, make us laugh or cry.
We will encourage you to film things that are magical to you, or unexpected, raw or transformative.
Tell us about moments that changed you.
You can use your own phones or the simplest of cameras and send us your story.
Alternatively, you can write stories, observations, poems which could be used as voice overs.
Don’t worry about how perfect everything is, unfiltered rawness, and authenticity is what is important.
We want to see and hear things that professional filmmakers would miss.
When all submissions are in – an editor and our Creative Lead, Mark Cousins, will look at them all and select the magic moments.
These won’t necessarily be big things, it might be just a joke, a look, a laugh…
The completed film will world premiere at the 2024 Belfast Film Festival, with the contributors and their families there.
It will play at locations around the city and at international film festivals.
