About this Event
Baltic Cinema
Tish with Paul Sng & Jen Corcoran + Curator Tour
£12.50 Per Person / £10 Concessions
Saturday 12 December 2026 | 14:00
14:00: Exhibition Tour of Tish Murtha & Kuba Ryniewicz: with its curator Niomi Fairthweather, Head of Exhibitions
15:00: Tish screening with Paul Sng and Jen Corcoran in conversation
This special event comprises a guided tour of the Tish Murtha & Kuba Ryniewicz: Close to Home exhibition by its curator Niomi Fairweather and a chance to see the vital, much-commended film Tish and hear from both director Paul Sng and the film’s producer, North East-based Jen Corcoran, in-conversation. The film Tish is a journey of exploration for Ella Murtha as both daughter and custodian of the Tish Murtha archive, a chance to elevate and preserve a legacy that has been lost and to tell the story of an artist and woman outside of the ‘mother’ that existed for her – or the version of Tish claimed within dominant narratives of the 70s and 80s photography – from the people who knew Tish and the images she left behind.
Tish screens in response to Close to Home, as part of the Baltic Cinema season .
Tish (15)
Dir. Paul Sng / UK / 2023 / 1hr 30mins
Digital video | In English
Driven by a commitment to document the impact of deindustrialisation on working class communities in Northeast England in the 1970s and 1980s, Tish Murtha used her camera to expose social inequality. She felt she had an obligation to the people and problems within her local environment, and that documentary photography could highlight and challenge the social disadvantages that she herself had suffered. However, despite early acclaim for her work, she was unable to make a living from photography and died in poverty.
Paul Sng is a bi-racial British Chinese filmmaker from London who has lived in Edinburgh, Scotland since 2018. Across documentary and drama, Paul strives to amplify rebellious voices and tell bold and creatively ambitious stories about outsiders, which resonate with diverse audiences. He has directed five short films and seven feature documentaries, winning numerous awards for Poly Styrene: I am a Cliché (winner of BIFA 2021 Best Documentary, BIFA 2021 Raindance Discovery Award), Tish (Sheffield DocFest 2023 Opening Gala film) and Reality is not Enough (Edinburgh International Film Festival 2025 Closing Gala film). In 2022 he was named a BAFTA Breakthrough Artist.
Jen Corcoran is a filmmaker and creative industry professional from Stockton-on-Tees. Her production credits include Tish (Opening Gala, Sheffield DocFest 2023) and BIFA-nominated Nascondino (Hide & Seek) (Documentary Competition, London Film Festival 2021; CPH:DOX 2022). She has a particular interest in collaborative and ethical participation in documentary storytelling and art as activism. Jen developed a number of regional stories from 2019-2025, including Teesside-set documentary feature All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea (dir. Jeanie Finlay, 2026). Jen produced the award-winning regional development programme Tees Valley Screen from 2020-21 and has also worked as a film lecturer and programmer.
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Film starts 15:00. Drinks are available from Baltic Kitchen and may be taken into the auditorium.
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Please note we cannot offer refunds on this event unless the event is cancelled. If the event is cancelled, we will offer a full refund but won’t be able to refund donations.
*Concessions: under 18s, unwaged & 65+
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Supported by Film Hub North with National Lottery funding on behalf of the BFI Film Audience Network.
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Shooting the Messenger
November 2026 – March 2027
Films on Photographers, Photographers on Film. What drives photographers to frame, to capture, to record? Sometimes compulsion, sometimes necessity, always curiosity.
Across five documentaries, this season looks at photography and photographers – their desires and struggles, passions and fears – to accompany Baltic’s current exhibition Tish Murtha & Kuba Ryniewicz: Close to Home.
The films propose photography as a lifetime’s quest and suggest that for many photographers – whether railing against the system, documenting their communities or pushing the boundaries of the medium – the more they take photographs, the more they know themselves.
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Baltic Cinema
Baltic Cinema is a year-round cinema programme at Baltic, lighting up our Level 1 Cinema with the best new and archive films. Expanding on our exhibition themes and bringing otherwise rarely-screened work to the North East.
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Accessibility
We want our events to be inclusive and accessible. If you have any accessibility requests or questions, please email [email protected]. Ahead of your visit, you can find out about Baltic's facilities and accessibility here.
Event venue & nearby stays
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, South Shore Road, Gateshead, United Kingdom
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