A film by Kelly Gallagher

Filmmakers Collaborative, Inc. image

About the film:

BY ALL YOUR MEMORIES, an abolitionist collage feature film, explores (1) histories of Irish and Palestinian solidarity, (2) the politics of early Irish immigrants in America regarding the abolition of slavery, and (3) the assassination of Robert Kennedy and subsequent incarceration of Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan. Using collage filmmaking strategies, oscillating between super 8mm film, found footage, and handcrafted experimental animation, Kelly Gallagher asks her audience to engage with competing historical narratives. As an anti-capitalist and prison abolitionist who grew up in an Irish-American Catholic household, stories of Irish resistance have always surrounded Gallagher. When she recently learned about RFK’s assassination and Sirhan’s conviction, she was motivated to examine the historical relationship between Palestine and Ireland and the complexities of their legacies of solidarity. Gallagher’s film asks: what can transnational solidarity look like? How did so many Irish forget their leftist, anti-colonial radical roots and politics as soon as they came over to America? Why is Sirhan still imprisoned? What could the abolition of prisons make space for in a new world? And finally what can we learn today from the powerful renewed international organizing for a free Palestine?