Premiere of The Laughable at Docs Ireland, Belfast, curated by aemi

Film information:
Roxy Farhat, Zhala Rifat, Acting Woman, 2017, Sweden, 5 minutes
Omar Chowdhury, BAN♥️ITS, 2024, Bangladesh, Belgium, South Korea, 18 minutes
Sarah Browne, The Laughable, 2025, Ireland, UK, 33 minutes

Selected by aemi for Docs Ireland, this screening brings together three recent works, each radically different but engaging with humour and performance in ways that unravel our expectations. 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.

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

The Laughable is commissioned by Imagining Technologies for Disability Futures at the University of Leeds. Funded by the Wellcome Trust Public Enrichment Award and supported by The Arts Council / An Comhairle Ealaíon.