Help us take our upcoming film and music project on tour

We are Hoolan Ensemble - a collective of composers and instrumentalists studying at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, dedicated to commissioning and performing new music, and collaborating with other art forms.

We need your help to take our upcoming project on tour.

In Mid-October, we will be touring our event ‘Le regard’ to 5 cinemas and arts venues across Scotland and the North of England.* The event will consist of two experimental film screenings by female directors, accompanied onstage by new scores composed by ensemble members Nancy Johnstone and Niall Docherty. The first, Germaine Dulac’s subversive 1928 classic The Seashell and the Clergyman, is a dreamlike tale of male sexual obsession mischievously presented from a razor-sharp feminist perspective. Widely regarded as the first film ever to use surrealist editing techniques, it caused a riot at its Paris premiére and retains a brilliant sense of modernity almost a hundred years after its creation.

The second film Foreign, a brand-new short directed by emerging Irish-Czech filmmaker Sára Ní Eithir, explores themes of self-objectification, alienation and fetishisation in order to reveal the struggle of being in a female body today. Riffing on the poetic imagery and daring visual techniques of Dulac’s Seashell, Eithir creates a stirring 21st century response to the 1928 masterpiece by recontextualising these in contemporary film practice. The two beautifully atmospheric scores will be played by a distinctive instrumental line-up of wind ensemble, guitar and electronics, with the evening also including two short talks discussing the fascinating history of women in film that inspired the project and the process of making the new film.

As well as highlighting the somewhat overlooked history of women in film, we hope that through this project, we are able to bring contemporary classical music to audiences who would normally be hard to reach. Many of the venues we are touring to are community focused, and so we hope that by bringing this project directly into the communities, we can engage with people who may feel they don’t belong in traditional art venues.

We are the winners of the Write Start Competition 2024, an RCS competition supported by alumni, actor Sam Heughan. Whilst this has covered a large proportion of the costs, we are still in need of £2000 to pay for travel and food. As students, we aren't eligible for any grant funding, and so we would really appreciate any help you can give us, in raising this sum.

Thank you. :)

*Tour dates:

10/10 - Glasgow - Britannia Panopticon

11/10 - Dundee - Dundee Contemporary Arts

13/10 - Leeds - Hyde Park Picturehouse

14/10 - Sheffield - Showroom Cinema

15/10 - Liverpool - Plaza Cinema