John T. Davis: Traveller 
John T. Davis is internationally recognised as Northern Ireland’s most distinctive documentary filmmaker and cinematographer.
To mark his 70th birthday in March, and in recognition of his over 40 years of filmmaking, QFT is mounting a retrospective of his work.
In 1965 the photographer Alen MacWeeney began a two year project photographing and recording the songs and stories of Travelling Communities in Galway and on Dublin’s Cherry Orchard Halting Site. Over thirty years later, he and John T. Davis teamed up to co-direct Traveller, a visually exquisite film which documents MacWeeney’s attempt to find the Travellers in his photographs. A fascinating collaboration between two visual artists with distinctive and differing points of view, Traveller charts the distance between subject and observer, between still and moving images, between personal and social territories. The film is shot in rich black and white, offering as it unfolds a series of glimpses into Ireland’s enigmatic ‘hidden’ culture, and raising unsettling questions about mainstream perceptions of and attitudes towards this stubbornly independent people.
The screening will be introduced by John T. Davis.
Part Two of Peripheral Visions: John T. Davis, A Retrospective also includes:
Hip to the Tip - Atlantic, The Independent Years
Discover more about the work of John T. Davis here.
This season is presented in partnership with Film Hub NI. Special thanks to Northern Ireland Screen, the Irish Film Institute, Peter Strain and Yellowmoon.
