A note from the film blog editors:
We are delighted that Elspeth Vischer has written a blog post reflecting on her last year of work. Elspeth runs the production company Vish Films and specialises in non-fiction and experimental work that centres counter-hegemonic perspectives, particularly queer and intersectional feminist frameworks. Elspeth completed a Creative Practice PhD at Queen’s University in 2023.
We hope Elspeth’s blog will be the first in a series highlighting the work of members engaged in women’s film and television history across the UK and Ireland. The focus of the blogs will be members’ work on women’s film and screen media history, whether that is a contemporary intervention, attempt to record and archive for the future, or a reflection on the meaning of history from the perspective of women filmmakers.
If you would like to write a post, or partake in an interview about your work, please get in touch with Tiffany at t.bale.1@research.gla.ac.uk.
I am delighted to be writing this for the Women’s Film and TV History Network, with great projects wrapped up, new ones in progress and exciting beginnings on the horizon.
It’s a rare quieter moment where, coffee firmly in hand, I can take stock and reflect on what has been a whirlwind year of work!
As a filmmaker and project coordinator, based in Belfast I have been balancing my own creative work and championing projects that look at community inclusion within our local moving image history.
Northern Ireland Now
I have just finished my role with Nerve Centre in partnership with Northern Ireland Screen where I coordinated two phases of a project called ‘Northern Ireland Now’ aiming to diversify the Digital Film Archive. This archive is managed through Northern Ireland Screen and contains over 14,000 clips from the 1890s to more recent years. It manages Ulster Television/ ITV broadcast materials from the past as well as an ever-burgeoning collection of donated ‘amateur’ filmmakers’ work. Through collaborative engagement we have worked with over 30 partners across the North of Ireland and Belfast, to create two beautiful new collections out of hundreds of community video contributions in the Digital Film Archive. The first, Northern Ireland Now: Phase One contains over 14 partners from 6 counties and can be viewed here: Northern Ireland Now: Phase 1 – Collections – Northern Ireland Screen | Digital Film Archive
The second collection, Northern Ireland Now: Phase Two, contains over 15 partners from across Belfast and can be viewed here: Northern Ireland Now: Phase 2 – Collections – Northern Ireland Screen | Digital Film Archive
We were thrilled to be a part of a large-scale showcase, ‘Outpouring,’ at a unique heritage site, Riddel’s Warehouse in Belfast, from end of May until 5th July 2026. Here, we had a special beanbag cinema space, screening community partners’ films and hosting events to showcase the work of young people, disabled artists and those from ethnic minority backgrounds within the Northern Ireland Now collection. At Outpouring we also launched our Online Engagement Toolkit for Phase Two of the project. This is a useful resource containing case studies, videos and strategies for born-digital contemporary collecting. Born-digital here refers to the materiality of the videos contributed: they are shot on DSLR, on phones and made for different reasons, such as social media posts and more cohesively funded film projects. These materials face different risks for preservation than that of analogue film reels. Phones can be lost easily and entire community group’s visual histories can go with them. Part of our contemporary collecting strategy was to reinforce understanding of the fragility of digital materials and the need for preservation of community stories.
Check Out the Online Toolkit Here
The aim of Northern Ireland Now was to create a more diverse portrait of what the North of Ireland looks like today through contemporary collecting. I am very proud to say I think we have achieved this in spades!
You can check out the two collections and find out more about our fantastic Northern Ireland Now project below:
General Info about Northern Ireland Now
Phase 1 Collection Digital Film Archive
Phase 2 Collection Digital Film Archive
Nursing Through
My personal short documentary Nursing Through, made in collaboration with sound artist Ryan O’Neill, has recently had some festival screenings and even a cheeky accolade! We shot this film all over Derry, Donegal and the Antrim coast and it contains poignant as well as joyful reflections on what nursing was like in the past. It is a film that considers the question: ‘what does respite mean for carers’? This stemmed directly from my fascination with my own grandmother’s oral histories of her days as a nurse, how she supported the family and how it was a means of independence. It was also a job that had a unique position in the conflict of the North of Ireland. Nurses were in a presumed position of professional neutrality, treating patients from all sides of the political divide in a time of civil conflict.
At Docs Ireland festival in June, Nursing Through was featured as part of a shorts programme. It meant the world to me that a number of nurses who gave their time to be interviewed in the film were present in the audience.
It was emotional for me to know that my late Granny Dolores’ legacy as a nurse and all- round incredible human could live on through this work and be shared by different audiences. It was really special to be honoured with a ‘Best Documentary’ award at Eutopia Arthouse film festival in Belfast’s Media Arts Centre in early July, too! Thanks again to the team there. The image below from Nursing Through contains archive imagery of members of the History of Nursing Network working in the Royal Victoria Hospital in the 1970s, superimposed with a bucolic image of a field in Dundrum, County Down, a place of respite for a retired Mater Hospital nurse, Mairead McCann, who also features in the film.
We Were Always Here
Another highlight this year came from a very special screening as part of International Women’s Day celebrations in March. Belfast Film Festival put on a satellite programme called ‘All Women on Screen’ and selected my 30-minute doc, We Were Always Here to be a part of the opening night. We Were Always Here was commissioned by HERe NI an LGBTQIA+ charity based in Belfast and centres queer narratives linked to ‘places of pride’ both past and present. The title denotes the misperception of queer history as being a newly evolving thing, when in fact these lives have always been lived and have been hidden from official record, for myriad reasons. This is especially true in the North of Ireland, where a civil conflict raged and anti-gay and trans laws were especially punitive.’ We’ve been lucky enough to have lots of brilliant screenings with the film over the past year, including in the Irish Consulate, art museums and community cafes. The ‘All Women on Screen’ event stood out, as it was hosted by friends at the Belfast Film Festival and many of the contributors to the film were in attendance. Sharing underrepresented histories has been a recurring theme in my work throughout the past eight years. I volunteered with the LGBTQIA+ heritage group from 2020 and was delighted that We Were Always Here could spotlight hidden queer histories of Belfast. In addition to this, it points audiences towards contemporary places to hang out and support, including the fantastic Paperxclips and Happy Out cafes. I hope the film helps to shape an ongoing narrative about how we can construct a sense of community history and all be a part of this ongoing story.
Belfast Stories
Looking ahead, I am thrilled to have new opportunities with the archive Belfast Stories, which I will be getting stuck into soon. Belfast Stories is a large-scale screening and archive space with exhibitions and visitor draws that is due to open in the city centre in 2030. Much of my work over the past year has involved working with local communities to share stories and skills on why preserving local narratives is so key to us all moving forward together.
It will be a great new adventure to put this experience into practice within a key new heritage venue. I am so grateful for everyone I have got to work with thus far on various projects. I hope that I can collaborate with many friends again from the likes of Nerve Centre, Northern Ireland Screen and beyond. We’re all surrounded by vital stories that need to be celebrated by the city and cherished for the future. This is something I will continue to strive to do in this next chapter!
