Through the Lens,  Ireland’s only arts and health film festival, returns in 2013 for a special season of films aimed at medical professionals, students, service users, artists, filmmakers and the general public. The 2013 festival is a Bealtaine event and will explore perceptions of older age and how these are represented within film. Organised by the National Centre for Arts and Health, Tallaght and RUA RED, the film programme will run from 21-29 May.

Through the Lens began in 2011 with a programme exploring perceptions of mental ill health and how mental health issues are represented within film. Each event in the 2013 festival will include refreshments, a screening and a panel discussion and Q&A afterwards with medical professionals and service users from Tallaght Hospital. This initiative builds on significant work at both the hospital and arts centre in terms of arts and health. The aim is to focus on the theme of older age as part of the Bealtaine festival and to open debate about how the films portray older age from a variety of perspectives.

Location: Rua Red Arts Centre, Tallaght, Dublin 24

Phone: 01 451 5860

Email: boxoffice@ruared.ie

Cost:  €3.00 per film  (€10.00 for all four films)

IRON LADY
Tuesday 21 May, 11am

An elderly Margaret Thatcher talks to the imagined presence of her recently deceased husband as she struggles to come to terms with his death while scenes from her past life, from girlhood to British prime minister, intervene.
105 mins / 2011

Post screening discussion facilitated by Dr Siobhan Ni Bhrain (Consultant Psychiatrist for Older People and Clinical Director, Tallaght and St. James’s Mental Health Services)

UP
Saturday 25 May, 11am

Adults go free with child
By tying thousands of balloons to his home, 78-year-old Carl sets out to fulfill his lifelong dream to see the wilds of South America. Russell, a wilderness explorer 70 years younger, inadvertently becomes a stowaway.
96 mins / 2009 / U

UNTOUCHABLE
Monday 27 May, 6pm

After he becomes a quadriplegic from a paragliding accident, an aristocrat hires a young man, Driss, from the projects to be his caretaker. Driss moves to the mansion, changing the boring life of Phillipe and his employees.
112 mins / 2011

Post screening discussion facilitated by Dr Jacinta McElligott, Consultant in Rehabilitation Medicine, Senior Lecturer in Trinity College Dublin and Clinical Associate Professor, East Carolina University (North Carolina)

BRAIN FREEZE
Wednesday 29 May, 1pm

Takes place in main lecture theatre, Educational Centre Tallaght Hospital
At the age of 47 and on the cusp of the breakthrough that is every artist’s dream, the comedian John Kawie suffered a devastating stroke which he thought would derail his career… and life.

Post screening discussion facilitated by Professor Desmond O’Neill, Consultant Geriatrician and Stroke Physician at Trinity College Dublin, Chair of the National Centre for Arts and Health

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