Volcano Cinema: Of Eruptions and Other Stories is a season showcasing the diverse ways volcanoes have been documented and reimagined through film. Displacing the central role of the disaster movie, the programme approaches volcanoes and their metaphoric power from different landscapes, cultural mythologies, and with potency and provocation.

📅5th Dec, 6.30pm (screening starts at 7pm)

📍Kelvin Hall, Glasgow, G3 8AW (Free entry, registration recommended) 

Films: 

🌋Nacer de nuevo / To Be Born Again | Marta Rodríguez | 1986, 1987 | Colombia | 30mins | Spanish with English subtitles 

To Be Born Again is a portrait of María Eugenia Vargas (71) and Carlos Valderrama (75), who must rebuild their lives after losing everything to the landslides and floods triggered by the 1985 eruption of the Ruiz Volcano (Colombia). The main theme of the film is the courage to live even, as María Eugenia Vargas says at the end of the film, ‘the courage to die. The film also serves as a tribute to the two-decade-long cinematic legacy of Colombian filmmaker Jorge Silva (Cinematography), the partner of Marta Rodríguez (Director). Silva initiated the filming of this documentary but tragically passed away during its production on January 27, 1987.

Nacer de nuevo / Dir. Marta Rodríguez (Colombia, 1986-1987) Photo: Jorge Silva.

🌋¿Puede una montaña recordar? / Can A Mountain Recall? | Delfina Carlota Vázquez | 2021 | Mexico/Argentina | 20mins | Spanish with English subtitles

The diary of a period lived in Mexico and a portrait of Popocatepetl, an active volcano. During the conquest, the Mexican revolution, the uprising of the EZLN and today the feminist movement.

Puede una montaña recordar? (Delfina Carlota Vázquez, México/Argentina, 2021)

🌋Montañas ardientes que vomitan fuego / Burning Mountains That Spew Flame | Helena Girón & Samuel M. Delgado | 2016 | Spain | 14 mins | Spanish with English subtitles.

A mysterious voyage down into the depths of one of the longest volcanic tunnels in Europe in order to excavate an idiosyncratic history of resistance.

Montañas ardientes que vomitan fuego (Helena Girón & Samuel M. Delgado, Spain, 2016)

Screening of short film programme with panel discussion with Charlotte Gleghorn, Amelia Bain and Teresa Armijos Burneo (Ixchel Research Team)

About the programme:

Volcanoes have persistently ignited the imagination and have been construed filmically since cinema’s beginnings. In 1902, Georges Méliès recreated an eruption in the actuality film Éruption volcanique à la Martinique, a 1-minute simulation of Mount Pelée built from cardboard and flashing lights. A recent cycle of theatrical releases, including Into the Inferno (Werner Herzog, 2016) and Fire of Love (Sara Dosa, 2022), exploring volcanoes, their enthusiasts, and audiovisual traces invites us to contemplate them anew.

This season of films initiates a reflection on the relationship between humans and volcanoes, their agency, and resistant ways of envisaging their power and eruptive activity. The programme features highly metaphoric and figurative explorations to explicit engagements with the scientific, political, and territorial discourses of living within a volcano’s reach.

This series of events takes place in Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh, between the 25th of November and 7th of December 2024. The season is a collaboration between CinemaAttic and the “Ixchel” project, sponsored by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and hosted at University of Edinburgh.

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Each screening will feature a trailer for the upcoming feature film Cordillera, co-produced by the Ixchel project, in collaboration with the Guatemalan production company La Casa de Producción, and director Jayro Bustamante.

Accessibility:
SDH captions
English subtitles
Wheelchair accessible