The programme opens with Roxy Farhat and Zhala Rifat’s Acting Woman in which two women adopt a single pose and then hold it, locking the viewers as well as themselves into a silent struggle with the camera.

This is followed by Omar Chowdhury’s BAN♥️ITS, one of the most notable highlights at this year’s IFFR, which effectively blurs the lines between documentary and fiction in its depiction of a group of outlaws on the borders of Bangladesh and India who are obsessed with Heath Ledger’s Joker.

The programme closes with the premiere of The Laughable, a new experimental documentary by artist and filmmaker Sarah Browne that explores what is laughed at, and who has the power to laugh, through the performances of six disabled comedians. In the absence of either a laugh track or a live audience for the recording, the question falls to the collective cinema audience. 

Acting Woman, dirs. Roxy Farhat, Zhala Rifat, 2017, Sweden, 5 mins

BAN♥️ITS, dir. Omar Chowdhury, 2024, Bangladesh, Belgium, South Korea, 18 mins

The Laughable, dir. Sarah Browne, 2025, Ireland, UK, 33 mins

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with artist and filmmaker Sarah Browne led by aemi co-director Alice Butler.

aemi is funded by the Arts Council of Ireland to support and programme moving image work by artists and experimental filmmakers. For more information visit www.aemi.ie

If you have purchased a Delegate Pass for Docs Ireland, reserve your spot here.