Guest editors D.A.D.D.Y. (AKA celebrated filmmaking duo Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman) welcome you to RTÉ Culture’s Culture Night celebrations…
Living in Dublin twenty-ish years ago, when the first Culture Nights arrived, there was a lovely luminous energy in the newness of it. One of the first years, we made a beeline for the Grand Lodge of Ireland, a Kubrick-coded Freemasons’ Hall on Molesworth Street. It’s a venue now, but back then it had been shrouded in mystery. People hadn’t really been in there before. The building is almost absurdly rich in symbolism, and on that first visit, the esoteric, cinematic beauty of it didn’t disappoint.
So for us, that first Culture Night experience started by being nosy, sharing the moment of being behind the curtain with a bunch of friends and fellow weirdos into this strange new place. Part private members’ club, part church, part B-movie.
Watch the trailer for D.A.D.D.Y.‘s feature film Extra Ordinary
And so, in order to honour that memory, today we’re getting our own guild of members together, and peeping behind the weird curtain of memory and culture.
Perhaps because we are a duo, for us, culture is sharing.
Watch D.A.D.D.Y.’s hilarious short film Mr. Foley
Like the Freemasons, we meet regularly, share traditions and rituals, look out for one another and have a strong sense of belonging. Mostly on WhatsApp now, but you get the idea.
Have you seen this? You’d like this. Or this. Or them. Wait until you see it! Isn’t this terrible?
We share these things and moments to get ideas across, to make each other laugh, to get a reaction, to show someone something we can’t quite explain, or to say, this is what I mean, this is what it should look like.
Watch D.A.D.D.Y.’s video for Floating by Jape
Culture, for us, is that exchange. One person finds something, passes it on, someone else adds something to it, and before long it belongs to all of us.
We have invited friends and collaborators, basically some Grand Masters in our personal Lodge Of Culture to pick things they like from the archives. National treasure Maeve Higgins has written about being buried alive, recent Oscar nominee John Kelly has made us a comic and we reveal the secret to getting a film made. Stay tuned for more!