The ninth Junior Film Fleadh is just around the corner promising an exciting line-up of new and classic cinema from all over the world.
This year, the Fleadh celebrates the American centenary of cinema with a look at some of the great teen films down through the decades. The fifties saw the emergence of the teenage film as a genre in itself, with films like Blackboard Jungle (1955) starring Sidney Poitier, Glenn Ford and Vic Morrow. Set in an urban all-male high school, it was a highly controversial film in its day, being banned in several cities in America on its release. Before George Lucas ever conceived of Star Wars he directed the wonderful American Graffiti in which he re-creates his teenage years growing up in small town America in the 1960’s. With a great non-stop rock’n’roll soundtrack it stars some very young well-known faces including Harrison Ford and Richard Dreyfuss.
Another well-known face, Matt Dillon, heads a fine ensemble cast of young talent in Jonathan Kaplan’s hard-hitting Over The Edge. Kaplan’s 1979 film is a powerful study of teenage alienation and rage. Set over twenty-eight days in 1988, Richard Kelly’s first feature Donnie Darko is a darkly comic, surreal journey in which themes of space, time and morality are interwoven with a classic coming-of-age story of a teenage boy’s struggle to understand the world around him.
Two wonderful new films from France and Germany screen at the festival; Nicolas Philibert’s Être et Avoir and Wolfgang Becker’s highly successful Goodbye Lenin. Educational films include Roman Polanski’s Macbeth, Franco Zeffirellli’s Romeo and Juliet and John Huston’s The Dead.
There is home-grown entertainment with our own Young Film Makers from Castleblakeney, Ballinasloe and Galway City. Graham Jones 1997 feature How To Cheat In The Leaving Certificate also screens along with the winner of the Best Irish Short in this year’s Galway Film Fleadh Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom.
There will be animation workshops for younger audiences and a screening of the beautiful animated feature directed by French filmmaker Michel Ocelot Kirikou and the Sorceress, alongside a screening of local animator Edith Pieperhoff’s creation myth How It All Began.
To find out more please contact the Junior Fleadh office at: 091 771 726
