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Royal Hospital Kilmainham
Dublin 8, D08 FW31, Ireland
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Picturing Derry (1985) is a documentary about conflict photography in Derry in the 1980s. Produced for Channel 4’s ‘Eleventh Hour’, it includes interviews with British and Irish photographers and journalists, news editors, collectives and artists. Learning from John Berger’s media-critical approaches, it asks who was producing these photographs, and for what purpose?

To mark National Heritage Week, join us on Tuesday 19 August at 1-2pm in IMMA’s Matheson Creativity Hub for ‘Recording History: On Picturing Derry’, a conversation between the directors of Picturing Derry, Sylvia Stevens and David Fox, chaired and convened by Dr Isobel Harbison. Our guests come together to discuss Picturing Derry, its influences, production and subsequent reception, since its first broadcast in 1985 (Channel 4’s Eleventh Hour: 1982–90). The 57-minute documentary will be viewable on a monitor before and after the discussion (12 & 2pm), and is available to view online.

Recording History
(2025–2026) is an oral history research project led by Dr Isobel Harbison comprising of interviews with filmmakers active in the North of Ireland from 1968 to 1990. This is a partnership with Irish Museum of Modern Art, Ulster Museum and the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland and is supported by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs: Shared Island Civic Society Fund, the Heritage Council, Ecclesiastical Ireland and the Benefact Group. More details here


Drop In Viewing

Picturing Derry (1986) 57 Mins
Presented on monitor in the Matheson Creativity Hub, IMMA
12-1pm & 2-3pm and also available to view online here

An analysis of photographic images of Derry (Ireland) from photojournalists, newspaper photographers and community groups, which discusses how images can be used and interpreted in a number of different ways, and how this, in turn, affects viewers’ impressions of reality.
Directors: David Fox and Sylvia Stevens
Producer: David Glyn
Cinematographer: Maxim Ford
Editor: Esther Ronay
Executive Producer: Rodney Wilson


About Participants

Sylvia Stevens Producer, Faction Films (more details here)
Sylvia Stevens is a co-founder of Faction Films, with over thirty years of experience as a producer and director. She has made programmes for UK broadcasters – BBC, Channel 4, ITV – and internationally – NETFLIX, RTE, PBS, NHK, ARTE, SBS, AVRO, STV, AJ and YLE amongst others. She has done co-productions in Latin America – Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil – and in India, South Africa, Australia and Japan.

Her films range from the social and political to the arts, and include Picturing Derry (Northern Ireland), War Takes (war in Colombia), Tales Beyond Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez on writing for cinema), Love Honour and Disobey (domestic violence), Chevolution – this feature documentary was shown in cinemas and has been sold to broadcasters around the world, Educating Igor (Roma in Slovakia), Android in La La (Gary Numan feather documentary)

Her films have won prizes in New York, Havana and Ireland among others. Sylvia has been the EAVE Documentary Expert since 2005 and has run workshops in Colombia, South Africa, Egypt, Tunisia, Turkey and Cuba. She has taught on ACCESS and Producing Documentary at Royal Holloway University.

David Fox
Artist and filmmaker David Fox was born in Dublin and spent his childhood in Killarney. He studied painting in Colchester and Bristol, and postgraduate painting at the Slade. He began making political art with The Poster-Film Collective in London and gave up painting for the next ten years. Later he was a founder member of Faction Films. He has directed and edited many documentaries for television including for RTÉ, Arte, BBC & Channel 4. He returned to live in Ireland in 2004.

Dr Isobel Harbison (Moderator)
Dr Isobel Harbison is an Irish art historian, and Senior Lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her first book, Performing Image, was published by the MIT Press in 2019 and her second book is forthcoming with Manchester University Press. She is currently working on an oral history project with the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Ulster Museum, with the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland called Recording History. More details here.