The inaugural Guth Gafa Documentary Film Festival will take place in Gortahork, County Donegal between the 18th and 21st of May 2006.
'Guth Gafa' (pron, goo gafa), which is Gaelic for 'Captive Voice' will screen a selection of invited documentary films from Ireland and around the world, and present a series of seminars and masterclasses for filmmakers and documentary lovers. This is the first ever documentary film festival located in the Donegal Gaeltacht, and using Irish as the working language of the Festival.
Festival organisers have lined up 21 films from 14 countries using 12 different languages. Including the World Premiere screenings of new Irish films inclduing, Sean O Cualain’s ‘Faiscthe as an Talamh’ and Jan Cattoni’s ‘After Maeve’. Multi-award winning international films will receive their Irish premieres with; Doug Block’s ’51 Birch Street’; Jean-Henri Meunier’s ‘La Vie Comme Elle Va’ and Taggart Siegel’s ‘The Real Dirt on Farmer John’ included in the festival programme. Other highlights include Marc Isaacs ‘Philip and his Seven Wives’ (UK), Leonard Helmrich’s ‘Shape of the Moon’ (Netherlands), Danae Elon’s ‘Another Road Home’ (Israel), Astrid Bussink’s ‘The Angelmakers’ (Hungary) and a highlight for the local rural Donegal community, Taggart Siegel’s ‘The Real Dirt on Farmer John’.
Workshops and training seminars have not been overlooked with Taggart Siegel and Jean-Henri Meunier scheduled to present a Masterclass on The International Marketing of Creative Documentaries, funded by Screen Training Ireland.
In addition, a Seminar/Debate on ‘Exploring Family Through Personal Films and Archive and Found Footage' will be chaired by Sunniva O'Flynn, curator of the Irish Film Archive, who will be joined by a panel of Irish and International film-makers. Showing clips from the guest filmmakers' work, the seminar will give the filmmakers the opportunity to discuss the power of found footage in their own personal films, the moral and ethical issues behind using found footage to reveal intimate family subjects and the technical difficulties of working with different formats.
Guth Gafa is the brainchild of Gortahork production company, Soilsiú Teoranta (formerly Vinegar Hill Productions) and their producer/director team, David Rane and Neasa Ní Chianáin. The festival is supported and funded by TG4, Udaras na Gaeltacht, The Arts Council, Screen Producers Ireland, RTE, MEDIA, Radio na Gaeltacht, Bord Scannán na hÉireann, STI and local sponsors.
For further info visit www.guthgafa.com
