An event which may have special resonance with Fermanagh's Polish community sees an award-winning piece of animation coming to the Clinton Centre in Enniskillen from this Friday.

The short film won the best animation award earlier this year at the Galway Film Festival where the judges described it as "a film of emotional depth and technical sophistication".

The Polish Language is an animated film-poem about the subversive force of art and the renewal of poetry in the Polish language. Based on the poem of the same title, the film pays homage to the revitalisation of poetry in the Polish language in the 20th century. Using hand-drawn, stop-motion, time-lapse and computer techniques, the poem unfolds onscreen with typography as a key visual element. Its visual style is loosely based on underground publications in Poland in the 1970s and 1980s.

A chorus of voices sampling poems in Polish, woven together with original music by Justin Spooner, combine to create a powerful score. It has been described as a a playful and solemn journey into the sensuality, beauty and power of language.

From Donegal and currently based in Chicago, Orla Mc Hardy has a background in fine art and graduated with a degree in animation in 2007. Since then her films have screened nationally and internationally, in film festivals and as part of group exhibitions.

Alice Lyons was born in New Jersey and has lived in County Roscommon since 1998. She is the recipient of the Patrick Kavanagh Award for Poetry and the Ireland Chair of Poetry Award.

'The Polish Language' opens at The Higher Bridges Gallery in The Clinton Centre Enniskillen, Fermanagh on Friday 30 October at 8pm, and the exhibition then continues to the 30th November 2009.

Further details are available from Diane Henshaw, arts officer for Fermanagh District Council at 6632 5050 ext 245 / diane.henshaw@fermanagh.gov.uk