The Flats | Reel Lives
Nerve Centre, 7-8 Magazine Street, Derry~Londonderry
Admission: £6 + booking fee
In his tower-block apartment in New Lodge, Joe reenacts memories from his childhood amidst the Troubles.
In this Catholic area of Belfast, the number of deaths was tragically significant. Joe is joined by neighbours Jolene, Sean, Angie, and others, all willingly participating in this process of revisiting the collective memories that shaped their lives and the district they live in.
Belfast’s painful modern history is tightly interwoven with the lives of Joe and the other New Lodge residents in Alessandra Celesia’s cinematic film, which deliberately unfolds in a timeless vacuum that resembles the 70s, yet is unmistakably contemporary. With reconstructions and a brilliant use of archival footage, Celesia conjures a subjective state where the past never really ended.
Alessandra Celesia | France, Belgium, Ireland, United Kingdom | 2024 | 114 mins
