The Metacinema Club is hosting an evening of documentaries and discussion exploring film activism at Grand Parade. Bringing together scholars, practitioners and film enthusiasts, the METACINEMA club, run by the University of Brighton’s interdisciplinary research cluster, ‘Understanding Conflict: Forms and Legacies of Violence’ is an events series which screens a documentary and hosts an interactive discussion exploring key themes of the film.
Shellshock Rock (1979) is a short documentary about the Belfast punk scene made by John T Davis. It features performances from the Undertones, Rudi, Protex, the Outcasts and several other Northern Irish bands, interspered with footage of the city and interviews with young people and local residents.
Made in part on short-end film stock borrowed from BBC cameramen, dubbed and mixed in the basement of the director’s house, it is an exhilarating, punky document of the punk scene and a disconcerting account of everyday life in 1970s Belfast. John’s interest in the direct cinema of DA Pennebaker and in cinema verite allows for an open, decentred narrative, one that resists any urge to taxonomise punk or the young people taking part in it. It remains one of the best, and least-seen, documentaries about punk anywhere in the UK.
When Friday 10 March 2017, 5 – 6:30pm
Where University of Brighton, Grand Parade, Room 204
Free entry
