Watch the film, free, here on Vimeo, https://vimeo.com/306857340 International Film Awards, Silver Winner, 2018. “It's a rich and thoughtful work. It reminded me of my Mexican film, What Is This Film Called Love, and, Life May Be, the film I did with Mania Akbari, but it's more wide ranging.” Mark Cousins, producer, director and writer. "One of my films of the year! It is so intense, so profound. It’s dreamy and yet real. It’s thoughtful and thought-provoking. And it gets better with every chapter." Nadin Mai, Curator, programmer @ tao films, tao-films.com Using footage shot on a trip to Mexico, this essay film explores the childhood memories of Irish artist and film maker, Nick Stewart, and Mexican writer and artist, Helen Blejerman. Stewart was brought up in Ireland and lived in Belfast through the darkest days of the conflict there. The experience of that time runs through the dozen or so stories that make up his half of the script of the film. Blejerman has written another set of stories that similarly explore her Mexican childhood and subsequent move to the UK. These stories counterpoint documentary footage shot while traveling in Mexico. Structured around the 21 stories that constitute the script, the film weaves a network of associations, memories and observations together in a non-linear narrative that is, by turns, political, biographical, poetic and factual. The music of Nils Frahm, that underscores many of the sequences, is an essential part of the film. Nick Stewart: over a period of 30+ years he has been the recipient of numerous awards, residencies and commissions including from the Canada Council, the EU, the British Council, the British Film Institute, Arts Council England and the Royal Festival Hall in London. He has exhibited his performance and video work in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Ireland, Canada, USA, India and Vietnam. Originally from Ireland he now considers himself to be a Londoner. A wide range of interests and research informs his work but the question of place and national identity in the context of Ireland is of particular concern to him. In recent years he has published two books, both engaged with the experience of his Irish background. In 2007 he published the Arts Council England funded book, no-one's not from everywhere, the culmination of several years of research into Irish artists and their views on Irish identity. In 2012 the John Hansard Gallery published, Which is The: 49 Views, the result of another ACE funded project focused on a ten-day drive along the Irish border. In 2014 his 3,500 word photo-text work was selected, from an international submission, for publication in Dark Mountain, Book 6. He has been working on this film, ... as sure as the rain, since 2012. nickstewart.org.uk Helen Blejerman is a Mexican artist and writer from Mexico City, based in the UK since 2006. She is an associate lecturer in Spanish Language and Literature in the University of Sheffield (DLL); and an associate lecturer in the Department of Fine art at Sheffield Hallam University, where she implemented in 2008 and delivers since, with artist Hester Reeve, Dialogue Sessions: an experimental module that explores collective thinking. She has been an invited speaker in Bastad, Sweden (for a European Commission project); Dublin (for Instituto Cervantes de Dublín and the Mexican Embassy in Ireland) and Cork, Ireland (for Cork University). Helen has exhibited her art projects in New York, Amsterdam, London and Mexico City. In 2014 her graphic novel, Lulu la sensationnelle, was published in France, by Presque Lune Editions; and her narrative work has been published in five Mexican Anthologies by Palabras y Plumas Editores. Helen has written serial radio projects in Spanish and in English (for the UK and Mexico), like Deciphering The City; On Pain the Dead and Other Delicacies; and co-produced with Radio UNAM, El Jardín De Nuestra Lengua (Our Language Garden). She is a frequent guest at the BBC Radio Sheffield. In 2018 she will complete her second graphic novel. Helen has a particular interest in exploring, in general, the anxieties in the status of the stranger. Also, the obsessions around notions of home, and the distance between home and the ‘self'. helenblejerman.com
