Doors 7:30p
Show 8:00p

UnionDocs
352 Onderdonk Ave
Ridgewood, NY

We are delighted to host a second night with the brilliant Declan Clarke for the NYC premier of his film, If I Fall, Don’t Pick Me Up!

If I Fall, Don’t Pick Me Up is quietly affecting and formally adventurous new work that traces the enduring creative partnership between Irish writer Samuel Beckett and German theatre director Walter D. Asmus.

Shot entirely on 16mm, Clarke’s film moves with his signature attentiveness through archives, correspondences, and performance histories to uncover a relationship grounded in interpretation, repetition, and deep mutual respect. What begins as a professional exchange between playwright and director gradually reveals an emotional resonance that lingers long after the stage has emptied.

In Clarke’s hands, the material becomes something more than historical—it’s intimate, lived, and haunted by questions of fidelity, authorship, and artistic legacy. How does meaning persist when the original players are gone? What do we inherit when the work continues, but the voices that shaped it have vanished?

Declan Clarke will be in conversation with UnionDocs Founder and Co-Artistic Director Christopher Allen following the screening to reflect on the process of making the film, Beckett’s long and complex relationship with Germany, and the layered terrain between friendship and collaboration. Don’t miss what promises to be an unforgettable premiere!

This is the second of two events with Declan, the first of which is on August 17th, where he is screening his two films How I Became A Communist (2023) and Saturn and Beyond (2021)!

For more with Declan Clarke, follow the link to listen to his episode on the UnionDocs podcast, Artistic Differences, where he discusses his films films, Saturn and Beyond (2021) and Group Portrait With Explosives (2014).

You won’t want to miss these events! These events are kindly supported by Culture Ireland.

Program

If I Fall, Don’t Pick Me Up

116 min, 2024,  Ireland

If I Fall, Don’t Pick Me Up explores the enduring creative partnership between Irish author Samuel Beckett and German theatre director Walter Asmus. Through letters and detailed stage notes exchanged over two decades, the film traces a relationship that evolved from professional to deeply personal. Centered around Asmus’s acclaimed 1988 production of Waiting for Godot at Dublin’s Gate Theatre, it reflects on legacy, memory, and what remains when live performance fades.

Bios

Declan Clarke, born Dublin, Ireland 1974 is a filmmaker and artist.

His films have been included in the FID-Marseille International Film Festival; Doclisboa, Portugal; the Villa Medici Film Festival, Rome; UNDER|DOX Munich; the Punto da Vista IDFF of Navarra, Spain; Beldocs IDFF, Serbia; Festival en Ville, Brussels; Tromsø International Film Festival, Norway; the F/Stop Film Festival, Leipzig; the St. Petersburg International Science Film Festival, Russia; FIDBA, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Jeonju IFF, South Korea; The New York Underground Film Festival and the Prismatic Ground Film Festival, also in New York.

His film Saturn and Beyond won the Georges De Beauregard International Award at FID Marseille IFF 2021. In 2024 his film If I Fall, Don’t Pick Me Up received the Mention Spéciale du Jury de la Compétition Internationale at FID Marseille IFF. His forthcoming feature film All the Renaults in the World won the Kodak Prize and the 2022 edition of FID Lab.

In 2016 he won the Jury Prize at the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts. In 2002/03 he represented Ireland on the PS1/MoMA International Residency Programme.

Christopher Allen is a producer/director of documentary media projects and a programmer of multi-disciplinary events. After graduating from Columbia University, he co-founded UnionDocs and has been responsible for the organization’s growth from grassroots as the Executive Artistic Director. The collaborative projects he initiated — including Living Los Sures, Just to Get By, Documenting Mythologies, and Yellow Arrow — unite the creative efforts of hundreds of artists, documentary makers and communities. He directed the early interactive documentary Capitol of Punk, exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art. In 2014 and 2016, Brooklyn Magazine named him one of the most influential people in Brooklyn culture. Christopher has served on the juries of film festivals such as RIDM (Montreal) and Doc Lisboa, and on funding panels such as NYSCA and LEF. He collaborates on live media performance projects such as Say Something Bunny! with artist A.S.M. Kobayashi.