The first single to be unveiled following the release of their Choice Music Prize-winning debut album Let The Dead Bury The Dead, Limerick-based trio Rusangano Family have just unveiled the video for ‘I Know You Know’.
Directed, shot and edited by the ever-talented Bob Gallagher “in conspiracy with” some familiar faces in Naoise Roo, Linda O’Connor, Sarah Joy McDermott, Eamonn Elliot, Elaine Mai, Sam Burton, Lisa O’Flynn, Kate O’Shea, David MacNamara, Aoife O’Donoghue and Eavan Brennan, the video is a masterfully understated – yet impressively experimental – visual accompaniment to a track that ‘is about how we all face various challenges in life, and our inability to speak about these issues. In one sense, it’s about opening up and engaging in conversation”.
Fresh from a rigorous workshop with filmmaker Werner Herzog in Cuba director Bob Gallagher undertook a journey on foot from Dublin to Limerick, conducting interviews and seeking participants.
“I wanted to perform an open-heart surgery of the land. Werner kept re-iterating the phrase ‘the world somehow reveals itself to those who travel long distances on foot” so I wanted to test that for myself. The core of the project is about engaging in conversation, and addressing things that are uncomfortable to say, but shouldn’t be. Truth should be freeing, not bound by fear or stigma. What started out with the goal of being more open about mental health on a personal level has expanded to include a lot of people who were willing to join in that conversation, which has been very inspiring.
It made sense that we would create a video and put on event that brings people together to think, talk and open up. Our ambition with this is that the conversation has a life beyond the video and the event. It should be a starting point and not a conclusion”.
Check out Eoin Murray’s recent interview with Gallagher regarding the video’s inspiration.
