This week will be the last opportunity to see Time to Fly, an exhibition of artworks from service-users of Ballina Training Centre, at Ballina Arts Centre. Ballina Training Centre participated in an ‘arts-needs’ research project initiated by the arts centre in 2005. As a result the training centre sourced Westport-based artist Claire Griffin to work with the group. The workshops with Claire took place over a two-year period until June 2008.
Time to Fly is the result of that process, with work from 15 of the participants included in this exhibition. Free admission. All are welcome to attend, exhibition runs until March 28.
Ballina Film Club: The Banishment
The Banishment is Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s follow-up to his award-winning The Return. A mythic tale of a family who moves from the city to the country, The Banishment follows Alex (Konstantin Lavronenko ), Vera (Maria Bonnevie ) and their young son and daughter as they settle into the old country house where Alex was born. The ghosts of the past weigh heavily on the ostensibly idyllic domestic scene, however. In this tense atmosphere, Vera tells Alex she is pregnant and that the child is not his; the smouldering patriarch must decide whether he will forgive her or seek vengeance. His desperation leaves no bond untouched.
Meanwhile, Alex’s brother Mark (Alexander Baluev ) – clearly a malicious force – has no contact with his own wife and children, and his presence casts a dark shadow over Alex’s psyche and the strained household. At the mercy of her tortured husband, Vera is the heart of the film, and Bonnevie’s characterisation is sublime. Solemn and measured, The Banishment proves that Zvyagintsev is a supreme alchemist of mood and a natural with painterly compositions. Highly evocative of Andrei Tarkovsky. Admission is €7.
