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film · Friday 21 August 2026 · Various 
Rip It Up: John T. Davis Documentary Season at QFT Belfast
At Queen's Film Theatre · 20 University Square, Belfast, Co. Antrim
At Queen's Film Theatre · 20 University Square, Belfast, Co. Antrim
Queen’s Film Theatre is giving over a full week to one of Northern Ireland’s most singular filmmakers, and it is hard to think of a better setting for the occasion. The Rip It Up documentary season - part of a BFI National Lottery funded programme running across the UK from May to October 2026 - lands at QFT from 21 to 27 August, spotlighting the work of John T. Davis. If you have any interest in how punk, road culture and working-class life in the North were captured on film, this is a week worth planning around.
John T. Davis has been making documentaries since the late 1970s, and his films are unlike almost anything else in Irish or British cinema. His debut, Shellshock Rock (1979), dropped a camera into the heart of Ulster’s punk scene - The Undertones, Stiff Little Fingers, young kids in Derry and Belfast who turned noise into politics - and let it run. It won a New York Film and Television Silver Award and remains a raw, irreplaceable document of the Troubles era seen through a subcultural lens.
His later work pushed further afield. Route 66 (1985) followed the road from Chicago to LA and won a Special Jury Award at the Banff Film Festival. Hobo (1991) tracked a man called Beargrease criss-crossing America on freight trains, and took the Young Audiences Award at San Sebastian. Across all of it, Davis shoots like someone who belongs in the room, not someone observing from outside.
The Rip It Up season frames this body of work within a wider celebration of youth rebellion and cultural expression on screen. Exact titles and screening times change week by week, so check the QFT website before you travel - but the full programme for this run is listed at queensfilmtheatre.com.
QFT sits at 20 University Square, directly beside Queen’s University Belfast - the building is easy to find, tucked into the red-brick terrace on the south side of the square. From Belfast city centre, Ulsterbus and Metro services on University Road drop you a short walk away. The Botanic train station on the Portadown to Belfast line is also roughly five minutes on foot. If you are driving from Dublin, the M1 brings you into Belfast in around two hours; street parking around the university is easiest on evenings and weekends, and there are pay-and-display bays on nearby streets.
The university quarter is a good place to spend an afternoon before an evening screening - the Botanic Gardens are across the road, the Ulster Museum is free and ten minutes on foot, and there are plenty of cafes and independent pubs along Botanic Avenue. There is more to see in Belfast and across Co. Antrim.
Heading to Queen's Film Theatre in Belfast? Antrim has plenty more to see. Read the Belfast area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.