Beaucoup de fantastique musique to enjoy at le Cork French Film Festival

Malheureusement pour my corny headline, but I had to throw a little bit of my (terrible – I used to be good at it years ago!) French into the post.

If you’re in Cork this weekend, there are some wonderful events taking place as part of the city’s French Film Festival, which I detail below.

Even better, there will be DJs after the events, including Cork DJs John Barry and John Hennessy on the Saturday night.

The line-up for this festival is really eclectic and proof of what happens when event programmers really think outside the box. Trés bien! (I’ll stop now.)

We haven’t heard from Katie Kim in a while, so I’m delighted to tell you that on Friday night she will be performing at what looks to be mind-bending and curious night.

At 9pm on Fri 11 March at The Pavilion, she will perform her own score for Germain Dulac film The Seashell and the Clergyman in surround sound. This film, which was released in 1929, is considered to be the first true surrealist film, pre-dating Dali and Bunuel’s Un Chien Andalou by one year.

Also on the night, Katie Kim will perform a specially arranged medley to accompany the film L’Invitation Au Voyage (1927)

As part of this evening of Dulac films, Donal Dineen & Niwel Tsumbu will peform original scores to three short films by Dulac: Étude Cinématographique sur une Arabesque, Disque 957, and Themes and Variations.

The duo will then treat the audience to the first live performance of their debut album which they made together under the name Parish. And as an added visual element, there will be live painting by special guest Guillermo Carrion using an overhead projector.

Tickets are €15 or €12 concession and the event kicks off at 9pm.

It’s probably fair to say that film buffs Solar Bears – who named themselves after a Russian sci-fi film – are the perfect audio companions to the improvisational, free-form work created by Guillermo Carrion and Lionel Palun. Carrion, an artist, creatings live ‘action’ painting on overhead projectors, while Palun films his work and then uses custom designed software to create yet more art out of the projections.

Many of us associate overhead projectors with stifling maths classes, so it will be a very unusual experience to see them used to make art with. You might have seen Carrion perform with Sonic Youth at Electric Picnic in 2007.

Tickets cost €12 or €10 concession and the event takes place in The Pavilion on Saturday 12 March.

Keeping with its experimental theme, the closing party for the festival features Etienne Jaumet, of Zombie Zombie, performing a selection of tracks from his album Night Music, which he worked on with Carl Craig. Jaumet is a prolific creator and Craig is one of house music’s most important figures. A pillar of the current Detroit house scene, his work with Jamet proves that music doesn’t have to be confined by genre.