Documentary Film Specialists in Belfast
What We Do
Second Chance Cinema are a Belfast based film club specialising in documentary film. We screen and hold events around a wide range of documentaries - new releases, classics, shorts and archival films.
Initially started in 2013 as a project responding to the loss of independent cinemas and lack of alternative film exhibition in the city, we began putting on film events in our local community, the Ormeau Road in Belfast. Our first projects involved free weekends of community pop-up cinema in a local theatre space and starting our long-running and popular documentary film club in the local pub on monthly Sunday nights. Check out our project archive for more details.
More recently we have been working across the city, programming one-off events for festivals and often collaborating on larger documentary projects such as our work with the Black Box. We also offer programming and curatorial services for organisations wishing to develop documentary programmes - see here for more info.
We have collaborated with and programmed for a wide range of festivals and organisations in Northern Ireland including Amnesty International, the Belfast Film Festival, the Black Box, Brazille Cineclub, Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, the Centre for Documentary Research, Household, Northern Ireland Science Festival, Northern Ireland Human Rights Festival, the Ulster Museum and the Queen’s Film Theatre.
Our work would not be be possible without financial and practical support from Film Hub NI.
Who We Are
Second Chance Cinema was founded and is run by Rosie Le Garsmeur and Stuart Sloan.
Stuart is a filmmaker and editor, who has worked on films that have shown across the world, including at Thessaloniki, SXSW and on PBS in the United States. Stuart also works as a film programmer, curating film programmes for various festivals and one-off events such as a series of large outdoor film screenings for Dublin County Council. He is now the documentary programmer for the Belfast Film Festival, launching Ireland’s biggest documentary festival, Docs Ireland in 2019, as lead programmer. Stuart has been an invited panel and jury member for various international film festivals and is a founding member of the QUB-based Centre for Documentary Research.
Rosie completed an MA in the Cultural and Creative Industries in 2007 and since, has been working in the arts delivering cultural projects for a range of organisations from galleries to festivals. She has experience in funding for the arts and project management and has worked on large-scale projects such as Culture Night Belfast and for The Belfast Festival at Queen’s. She is currently the manager of the Creative Europe Desk in Northern Ireland. In this role she promotes the Creative Europe programme, supports organisations in applying for funding and programmes events in and around international cooperation for the cultural and screen sectors.
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