Reimagining an Irish City: I am Belfast

Abstract

An early shot in Mark Cousin's I am Belfast lingers on a very unusual and unexpected landscape, what appears to be an icy vista reflected in water, with clouds drifting by in the distance. Where s this our narrator asks. Are we at the North Pole? Or in the clouds? Or on an ice planet? As the shot widens, it reveals a Belfast landmark, Shore Road Mill, hiding behind a hill of salt. From the beginning, Cousins film is concerned to provide a different vision of Belfast, to encourage the viewer to look anew at the familiar, or (to the non-local) to familiarise ourselves with the extraordinary richness of place, space and people in this much misrepresented Irish city.