Documenta: Silverwood
Colm Laverty & NIS Digital Film Archive
Documenta & Colm Laverty working with Northern Ireland Screen’s Digital Film Archive
A 10-minute film about Belfast-based Colm Laverty, a freelance filmmaker who works across the music and arts industries.
Saying yes in 2017 to an invitation to rummage in the Digital Film Archive to make one music video, led to filming Malojian recording an album in a lighthouse on Rathlin and going on tour with the band bringing archive back to the places it was filmed. Four years later Colm is still creating beautiful projects with musicians and archive film.
This video covers his journey so far, re-creating and re-purposing archive footage to create new artworks and films. Watch Colm talk about working as a filmmaker and sharing some favourite clips from Northern Ireland Screen’s Digital Film Archive. The archive has been an essential tool for Colm to create new work during the pandemic when people have been isolated and unable to work in the presence of others.
Colm’s latest creation is this video for local Belfast based band Documenta in 2021. Footage was used from the wonderful Spence Brothers films, ‘The Shadow Over Flatwoods’ ‘The Tyzzian Exiles’ and ‘The Testament of Caleb Meeke’.
“Documenta are a cosmic drone-pop septet from Belfast who count David Holmes and The Charlatans' Tim Burgess among their fans. Since their inception in 2009, they’ve produced two otherworldly albums – Drone Pop #1 and Drone Pop #2, exploring their mutual interests of astronomy, melody and noise.The band have an extended version of their cracking David Holmes-produced track Love As a Ghost.” Anita Awbi – PRS for Music
If you also love old films and television, you can watch local archive for free on digitalfilmarchive.net
Including the full album of Malojian music videos made by Colm Laverty in 2017 - https://digitalfilmarchive.net/project/coast-to-coast-malojian-77
Funded by Northern Ireland Screen's Digital Film Archive, supported by the Department for Communities. Project managed by Strand Arts Centre.