Hungry Hill
Hungry Hill documents the daily struggle of a community of sheep farmers in a mountainous region of Ireland, against the backdrop of an historical warning of ecological catastrophe from another part of Europe. Its intention not to analyse, but to actively produce aesthetic experience. It contains elements of both the personal and political, speaking from a personal perspective to the consequences of unhindered industrial expansion.
Mieke Vanmechelen
Mieke Vanmechelen was born in 1974 in Antwerp, Belgium. She lived in the polders of Zeeland-Flanders, where her father was a shepherd until 1981, when her family moved to a farm on the Beara Peninsula. In 1996 she graduated with a BA in Philosophy and Classical Civilisation from Trinity College Dublin. Following this, she returned to Kerry, near Kenmare, and started a family. Despite embarking on a BSc in Herbal Medicine, she became preoccupied with art, drawing and painting consistently for many years. In 2001 she moved back to the Beara Peninsula, close to the Cork/Kerry border, and took over her father’s hill farm. An encounter with the work Cheese by Mika Rottenberg in 2006, ignited a fascination with experimental film, and in 2014 she completed an MA at Crawford College of Art and Design. Since then she has worked almost exclusively in film and moving image. In parallel with her practice, she is heavily involved in education and works in various capacities as a children and youth facilitator, mentor and consultant. She was awarded a digital media bursary and a residency at Fire Station Artists’ Studios in 2020, which she completed in 2021. This afforded the opportunity of making durational work in an urban, as opposed to the usual rural setting. Since then Vanmechelen has maintained a studio in Dublin. Her company Fierce Quiet Films recently produced an experimental documentary called Hungry Hill, supported by an Arts Council Film Project Award. She has held the position of Kerry County Council Filmmaker in Residence (2017-2023)and has been awarded a Fire Station Artists’ Studio Residency (2023-2025) which will commence this September. Her work has been exhibited in Ireland and internationally in both gallery and cinema contexts.
Micheal Holly
Michael Holly is an artist, nonfiction filmmaker, researcher and lecturer based in Cork, Ireland. His work involves parafictional and nonfiction investigations into how identities are formed, and into the relationships that people have with culture, landscape, history and ecology.
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