Declan Clarke’s cinematic works are precisely timed studies of contemporary history and a German-Irish entanglement, ironically and laconically staged.
Declan Clarke Filmmaker and artist, was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1974. He lives in Berlin and Dublin. His films are shown in galleries and at relevant international festivals, including FIDMarseille , Villa Medici Film Festival, Rome, Punto da Vista IDFF in Navarra, Beldocs, Belgrade, Tromsø Intl. Film Festival, St. Petersburg Intl. Science Film Festival and New York Underground Film Festival.
We Are Not Like Them
Geist Trilogy (Part 1&2)
IE/DE 2013 45 min | 16 mm (digital) | no sound
Four different locations in Europe invite a quiet contemplation of their places as they were at the time of shooting in 2013. The film uses the tropes of the early 20th century documentary
film and the mid century espionage film to contextualise these sites, which, in order of appearance, are the former Wallsend and Walker shipyards in Newcastle Upon Tyne;
Eisenhüttenstadt, a city on the eastern border of Germany, Nowa Huta, a city on the outskirts of Kraków in Poland, and the Groupe Scolaire L’Octobre – a primary school in the Alfortville district of Paris.
The Most Cruel of All Goddesses
Geist Trilogy (Part 1&2)
IE/DE 2015 60 min | 16 mm (digital) | German, English
Portrait of the life of German philosopher Friedrich Engels as a backdrop to a noir/espionage film that follows an unnamed agent on an unspecified mission. The film reflects upon the history and development of the European left-wing political movement and its significance
to the Manchester region, particularly Salford, where the origins of the socio-political
foundations of the 21st century were laid.
Also filmed in Wuppertal and Munich, including at the Oktoberfest, the film connects
the industrial development of the UK and Germany through the political upheaval that the unparalleled change created on both countries and subsequently across the globe.
Group Portrait with Explosives
His Story
IE/DE 2013 42 min | 16 mm (digital) | English
The former country of Czechoslovakia and South Armagh in Northern Ireland. Brno is an industrial city that is renowned for its exceptional and numerous examples of structuralist and brutalist architecture that were produced between 1918 and 1989 with the profits from industrial exports. South Armagh became notorious for it’s violent resistance to the British presence in Northern Ireland. It is now one of the most heavily monitored parts of the world.
Saturn and Beyond
His Story
IE/DE 2021 60 min | 16 mm, 35mm, Dia, DV (digital) | Englisch
The film considers how the development of telecommunications and air travel led ultimately to the exploration of the solar system, and, humankind’s desire to send signals to the further regions of the known universe. Most specifically it looks at our relationship with the planet Saturn, the furthest planet in the solar system visible to the human eye.
And what Alzheimer’s disease has to do with it? Or: The recurring obsolescence of each new phase of broadcasting technology.