Galway’s relationship with film-making dates back to when the industry was still in its infancy. It now boasts a rich film heritage with productions including Robert O'Flaherty's ‘Man of Aran’; John Ford's ‘The Quiet Man’; the pioneering work of Bob Quinn; Jim Sheridan’s ‘The Field’; up to 2011’s critical and commercial hit ‘The Guard’. In fact, it was Joe Comerford’s ‘Reefer and the Model’, a film set in Galway, that set the Galway Film Fleadh in motion as it proved such a hit. On July 8th, the Fleadh will kick off its 26th festival.
This year Galway City has made a bid to join UNESCO's Creative Cities network as a City of Film in recognition of this proud cinematic landscape. In celebration of this effort, the Galway Film Fleadh is presenting a strand of films showcasing the wide variety of cinema created in, about, and by Galway city and county.
Starting at the beginning, on Wednesday 9th July at 1pm there will be a programme of archive footage, ‘More Glimpses of Galway’, shot in and around Galway and its environs between 1921 and 1974, provided by the Irish Film Institute. Footage includes a US travelogue from 1936, an Irish Tourist Association video from 1943 and a short about the opening of the Tynagh mines from 1967.
Featuring a mix of grass-roots cinema, Irish Language titles and shorts programmes, the Fleadh will also premiere the latest international co-production to be shot here, called ‘Stay’, a story about a Canadian woman in love with a man from Conamara, starring Aidan Quinn and Taylor Schilling (‘Orange is the New Black’). There will also be brand new films featuring Galway talent such as ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town’, a western-like crime drama starring Emma Eliza Regan from Moycullen and the closing night film ‘An Bronntanas’, from Galway-based director Tom Collins.
Booking information for these events, as well further news on this year’s Film Fleadh programme can be found at www.galwayfilmfleadh.com. You can also chat to the Galway Film Fleadh on Facebook www.facebook.com/GalwayFilmFleadh or Tweet @FilmFleadh.
