The Digital Hub spotlights history of Dublin 8 with over 60s

  • Screen8 continues work with over 60s community to write, produce and film short documentary for Dublin International Film Festival
  • Heart of Dublin will premiere at the Light House Cinema on February 26th

Screen 8, a community-driven filmmaking programme for the people Dublin 8 and its surrounds, will screen its newest documentary Heart of Dublin on February 26th in the Light House Cinema and February 28th in The Odeon Cinema, Point Village as part of this year’s Dublin International Film Festival. Screen 8, which is a collaboration between The Digital Hub and the Festival, involves the local community coming together to produce a film and get a taste of Hollywood life.

In recent years, Screen8 has worked with the over 60s community of Dublin 8, following two years of projects involving local school children. The 2023 production involves a total of 12 participants, all aged over 60, who produced all elements of the documentary from writing to filming and editing.

Heart of Dublin explores the history of the Dublin 8 area through testimonials from the group, reminiscing on the aspects of Dublin 8 that they grew up with and sharing what they love, loathe and wish for the area. Exploring themes around culture, community, and regeneration, participants reflected on the artistic history of the Liberties and the changes that have occurred in the area over time.

Production was carried out over a period of twelve weeks, with filming taking place at The Digital Hub and other areas of the Liberties in December 2022.

Award-winning film director Laura O’Shea led the 2023 Screen8 project. Laura focuses on enhancing performances from her actors and explores themes of human connection. Her latest directorial work ‘Wednesday’s Child’ won the Oscar-qualifying Tiernan McBride Award for Best Short Drama at the 34th Galway Film Fleadh, making her the first female director to receive the honour in over 20 years. She has also received the ‘Taking Flight Award’, which celebrates Rising Talent at the 2022 Kerry International Film Festival.

Fiach Mac Conghail, CEO of The Digital Hub, said:

“The relationship we have with the Dublin International Film Festival as one of our member companies at The Digital Hub is an important one that we value for our creative engagement with the local community. The local area has an enriched history and one in which the community have pride in sharing. The ability to tell the story of Dublin 8 through a medium such as film is important, and it is a privilege to be a part of an integral community project.”

Gráinne Humphreys, Festival Director at the Dublin International Film Festival, said:

“Now in its fourth year, Screen 8 has offered an excellent opportunity to involve the local community of the Dublin 8 area in meaningful film making that has brought another level of excitement to the Festival. Utilising a documentary format for this year’s piece has added a new dimension to storytelling and is one which I think holds great success in showing culture in an exciting manner on screen.”

Laura O’Shea, Filmmaker in residence at The Digital Hub, said:

“The short doc we have created, titled ‘Heart of Dublin’, contains interviews, visuals, and music that was all devised, shot and performed by the participants themselves. The classes initially began with a few weeks of brainstorming; figuring out what story they wanted to tell & how they wanted to tell it. After devising an outline and general idea, we began filming interviews between the participants where they asked each other a series of scripted questions about the Dublin 8 area and their connection to it. From there, we developed a narrative based on the answers given and have added footage and photographs that they took themselves to enhance the storytelling.” 

Mark Wale, who plays himself in Heart of Dublin, said:

“Making ‘Heart of Dublin’ was a challenging but highly rewarding experience for all of us involved. It was a real treat getting to collaborate with people from my generation of many different backgrounds and, with Laura’s expert guidance, finding a way to communicate our stories, perspectives and feelings, many of them deeply personal, about Dublin 8. I hope some of our enthusiasm and love for the area gets communicated to the people who see the film.”

Heart of Dublin will premiere at the Light House Cinema at 2pm on Sunday, February 26th during the Dublin International Film Festival and will screen a second time in the Odeon Cinema, Point Village at 5pm on Tuesday, February 28th. See https://www.diff.ie/ for more details on pre-booking tickets.

ENDS

For more information:

Andrew Smith | Murray | asmith@murraygroup.ie | 083 076 5717

Rachel Power | Murray | rpower@murraygroup.ie | 087 939 9605

About Screen 8

The Digital Hub and the Dublin International Film Festival piloted Screen8 in May 2018 as an intensive but fun introduction to the possibilities of working in the film industry for 14-to-16-year olds living in Dublin 8. The out-of-school programme was designed to give young people an opportunity to be creative and gain experience in a variety of filmmaking roles — from scriptwriting and shooting to directing and movie editing. The group worked collaboratively on the production of a short film under the supervision of an Irish filmmaker.

In 2021, The Digital Hub and the Dublin International Film Festival decided to run Screen8 for older people in the community – those aged 60 years and older. This cohort of people will get to experience a taste of filmmaking and work with a professional filmmaker to create their own short film. The process will challenge and engage older people in a creative and fun project.

About The Digital Hub

Based in the historic Liberties area of Dublin city centre, The Digital Hub is an enterprise cluster for growing technology companies. Forty-seven established businesses operate in The Digital Hub. Together these businesses employ just over 400 people.

The Digital Hub is the largest cluster of digital media, technology and internet businesses in Ireland, providing a space for indigenous enterprises such as Akara Robotics, Bizimply, Good Travel Software and Neuromod to scale and grow. Major global companies like Lonely Planet are also based in The Digital Hub, along with industry organisations like the Dublin International Film Festival and PhotoIreland.

Since the project’s inception, over 400 companies have progressed through the enterprise cluster at The Digital Hub, generating thousands of skilled jobs. Some well-established alumni include Amazon, Athena Media, Black Shamrock, Boomerang Pharmaceutical Communications, Distilled Media Group (Daft.ie), eMaint, Etsy, Havok, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Riverdeep), Lincor, MTT,  Slack, Software AG, Silicon Republic, Square1, Stripe, TIBCO, VSware and Wachsman.

The Digital Hub is a supportive partner of the local community, by running several learning initiatives for people of all ages. Community learning programmes are run with local partners. For example, the Future Creators Cadets is delivered by H2 Learning and supported by National College of Art and Design (NCAD) and The Liber8 Music Project is run with BIMM Institute Dublin. The Digital Hub also works with community groups and organisations such as the Robert Emmet Community Development Project and Pocket Forests amongst others. The Digital Hub is one of three lead partners on the Smart D8 initiative which aims to improve and sustain the health and wellbeing of Dublin 8 citizens through innovation and collaboration.

The Digital Hub Development Agency is the Irish state agency that manages The Digital Hub. The Agency was established by the Irish Government under the Department of Communications, Climate Change and Environment.

In March 2021, the Government decided to dissolve the Digital Hub Development Agency and close The Digital Hub. The Agency will now embark upon an orderly winddown process which will see the transfer of lands to the Land Development Agency. All operations at The Digital Hub, including various community initiatives and partnerships, will continue as normal up until the closure date.

The Digital Hub is in a position to offer leases for new and existing companies up until 2025 following an agreement with the Department of Communications, Climate Change and Environment.

Further information is available at: www.thedigitalhub.com or on Twitter: @TheDigitalHub.

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