A leis­ure centre in Dub­lin, a pub­lic park in Enfield, the bridges of the Tyne, a town hall in Manchester – over the past five years all of these have served as the back­drops for Civic Life, a series of large scale com­munity mov­ing image pro­jects involving hun­dreds of com­munity volun­teers under the dir­ec­tion of UK-based Irish artists and film­makers Joe Lawlor and Christie Mal­loy (aka des­per­ate optim­ists). The res­ult­ing nine short films, largely shot in one incred­ible take on gor­geous 35 mm, have been acclaimed not only for their extraordin­ary visual qual­ity but for the depth of com­mit­ment the artists have demon­strated to the com­munit­ies with which they work and who are the stars of the films which res­ult. Their acclaimed debut fea­ture film, Helen, premiered at the Edin­burgh Inter­na­tional Film Fest­ival in 2008 and led to their being hailed by crit­ics as stars to watch for in the future.