Sat 28 Sep 2019
8:00pm | €18 | Promo codes can be applied at checkout
Sat 28 Sep 2019
8:00pm | €18 | Promo codes can be applied at checkout

1930 | Germany | 73mins

Matthew Nolan (guitar and electronics) and Rachel Grimes (piano and electronics), with guest Mary Barnecutt (cello) bring a new, original live score to this cinematic paean to the last days of Weimar Germany.

Filmed on location in Berlin, using a cast of amateurs in roles based on their actual day jobs, People on Sunday sustains a lyrical tranquility as people swim, listen to music, flirt, and generally enjoy their time away from the daily grind. The film was an unassuming but groundbreaking response to the big-budget films being produced by UFA at the time, and boasted a crew of young German cineastes who would later become major filmmakers in Hollywood: Robert Siodmak, Edgar G. Ulmer, Fred Zinnemann, and Billy Wilder.

“The new musical score to People on Sunday is based on a creative response to that which we don’t see. This compositional strategy allows us to echo those internal psychological and narrative meanings behind and beyond the images. For us there is a haunting duality to Siodmak and Ulmer’s vision of 1930s Berlin and the new score reflects this sense of social or even political turbulence. Ultimately, our aim is to offer the viewer another way of seeing the movie apart from the surface view.” Matthew and Rachel.


Matthew Nolan is a Dublin based musician, curator, and academic who specialises in the creation of original music for movies from the silent era. Matthew has worked on commissions from a range of performing arts institutions and arts organisations, including: The Dublin International Film Festival, Kilkenny Arts Festival, Dublin Fringe Festival, National Gallery of Art, Cork and Dublin French Film Festivals, Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, Cork Midsummer Festival, Film Society at the Lincoln Center in New York, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. He has also produced new music for several award winning Irish films over the last ten years.

Rachel Grimes is a composer and pianist who creates music for chamber ensembles, orchestras, film, and collaborative live performances. Her work has been performed by ensembles such as the Louisville Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, Knoxville Symphony, A Far Cry, Longleash and the Dublin Guitar Quartet. Releases include the recent soundtrack The Doctor From India, Through the Sparkle (with Astrïd on Gizeh Records 2017), The Clearing (Temporary Residence), Book of Leaves, Marion County 1938, If Then Not When with King’s Daughters & Sons (Chemikal Underground), and numerous albums with ground-breaking indie chamber group Rachel’s (Quarterstick/Touch and Go). She scores for film and multi-media installations and has licensed music to numerous film and TV works internationally.

Mary Barnecutt is a Dublin-based musician who works with a variety of bands, orchestras and educational projects. She has written music for short films, theatre, dance productions, and has worked with artists such as Chequerboard, Ray Harman, Liz Roche, Julie Feeney, Vyvienne Long, Adrian Crowley, Seti the 1st and Ruth O’Mahony Brady. She is currently cellist and vocalist with Teać Damsa in their touring production of Loch Na hEala. She is curator of the Sundays@Noon Concert Series in the Hugh Lane Gallery and co-director of Spike, Dublin’s annual alternative cello festival. She produces and records her own music under the name Mary & the Pigeons.

See “People On Sunday” video »

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