Screening of Patience (After Sebald) followed by discussion involving Grant Gee, Eilleen Battersby and Peter Sirr

Chairperson: Eibhlín Evans

 ‘Sebald is surely a major European author… He reaches the heights of epiphanic beauty only encountered normally by the likes of Proust.’ Independent on Sunday

Patience (After Sebald) – the latest project from acclaimed director Grant Gee – is an ‘exhilaratingly original’ (Sight & Sound) film essay inspired by the hugely revered German writer and ‘pyscho-geographer’ W.G. Sebald. This event sees the Irish premiere screening of the documentary followed by a discussion on Sebald’s writing, influence and legacy.

The film follows in the footsteps of Sebald’s most famous book The Rings of Saturn, a physical and philosophical journey across coastal East Anglia that the author undertook in 1992. Part travelogue, part memoir, part fiction, the book was a haunting and dizzyingly erudite meditation on art, landscape, history, death and memory.

Grant Gee’s other films include the music documentaries Meeting People Is Easy (about Radiohead) and Demon Days (about Gorillaz) – both nominated for Grammys – and the Grierson Award-winning Joy Division.

Following the screening, Eibhlín Evans, co-curator of this event, will chair a panel discussion on all things Sebald with Grant Gee, poet and translator Peter Sirr and Eileen Battersby, Literary Editor of The Irish Times.

This event is presented in association with the Irish Film Institute, Goethe Institut and the Flying Book Club.