We realised the power of it, Derry Film & Video Workshop is an exhibition-project by Sara Greavu and Ciara Phillips, that deals with the history of the radical film collective, Derry Film and Video Workshop (DFVW). This talk by guest curator Sara Greavu introduces the work of the radical film collective Derry Film and Video Workshop and looks at the approach to curating the DFVW archive for an exhibition that embraces the organic, reactive, and experimental methodologies of the DFVW collective.

DFVW was a woman-led film production company established in Derry in 1983 that operated until 1990. Its members, most of whom had no prior experience of filmmaking, came together with a sense of urgency to make films addressing overlapping political tensions around gender, class, the Irish national question and legacies of colonialism. DFVW produced a number of films, including Stop Strip Searching (1984); Planning (1986); Mother Ireland (1988); Hush-a-Bye Baby (1990), as well as enacting various forms of cultural education including community screenings and filmmaking courses. Working to counteract the ‘slow violence’ of British TV news and cinema stereotyped depictions of the north of Ireland, members of DFVW sought to tell a different story about their lived political and social realities.

Join guest curator Sara Greavu for a talk and walk through of a selection of DFVW material that comprises the exhibition that includes footage, photographs and documents related to the highly charged historical contexts of Derry, in which DFVW were working, as well as the overarching political principles and energy that bound the collective together.