Hear My Voice

Taal: NL
Categorie: reportage

Hear My Voice is a cinematic tribute to those who suffered loss as a result of the Northern Irish conflict (1968-1998). Timed to mark the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement that brought violence to an end, the film is based on artist Colin Davidson's elegiac exhibition of paintings, Silent Testimony. When Davidson began working on his signature portraits, he became increasingly preoccupied, not with the celebrity of his sitters, but more with their status as human beings; what he describes as their 'common humanity'. Each of the portrait sitters are linked by profound loss, with their own unique story to tell. Their "common humanity" is captured in the understated expression each of them shares. The sheer scale and detail of the portraits allows for close examination of the lines, brush strokes and layers of paint that make up the subjects' faces, their eyes and expressions say so much more than any TV interview could convey; horror and dignity etched in equal measure. We cut between elegant tracks of each of the paintings, both floating into and retreating from the art works. We can see the curved lines between the brush strokes, craters between the paint where our audience can contemplate the tragic nuances behind the stories. Hear My Voice breathes cinematic life into the stories of the people featured in Silent Testimony and is centred around a special hanging of the exhibition in a former ironworks building in Belfast City Centre, Riddel's Warehouse