Irish talent maintained a strong presence at leading national and international festivals this year from Cannes to TIFF following an exceptional line up at the 2016 Academy Awards.
Home-grown content will continue to impress at home and abroad in the coming weeks, with key Irish titles continuing to travel.
Kerry Film Festival, October 19th-23rd
Kerry Film Festival launched yesterday in Killarney, with the premiere feature films ‘Making It’ and ‘Brackenmore’, while its documentary line-up includes ‘Mattress Men’ and ‘Versus’, the project on the life and work of Ken Loach.
This year’s Kerry Film Festival also includes a day-long Short Film Market on Saturday October 22nd, with leading industry voices and talent such as IFTA CEO Áine Moriarty, Alan Fitzpatrick of Filmbase, directors Colm Quinn (Mattress Men), Michael Creagh (The Crush), Jim Cummings (Thunder Road) and Alex Fegan (Older Than Ireland).
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Dublin Animation Festival, October 22nd
Dublin Animation Festival takes kicks off this weekend with ‘Anomalisa’ Co-Director Duke Johnson attending as this year’s Guest Director. The Oscar-nominated animator is lined up for a Q&A session of his standout debut feature, which he co-write and co-directed with Charlie Kaufmann (The Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Synecdoche, New York).
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Clones Film Festival, October 27th-30th
This year’s opening night features three top quality Irish short films. These are Oscar-winning short film ‘Stutterer’ (Ben Cleary) and ‘The Boring Diary of Frances Noone’ starring Monaghan actress Joanne Brennan. ‘Park Life’ produced by Clones native Lee McMahon is also set to screen.
This opening night reception which launches the festival is free of charge and includes a wine and cheese reception at Clones Courthouse.
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Irish Film Festival London November 23rd-27th
Darren Thornton’s ‘A Date for Mad Mary’ is set to open the 6th Irish Film Festival London on Wednesday November 23rd with the cast and crew in attendance for a post-screening Q&A.
Speaking recently at the inaugural IFTA Women in Focus conference, co-writers Darren and Colin Thornton discussed the importance of writing for female roles, which the pair said the industry is lacking.
Seána Kerslake leads the cast as Mary and received the Ray Bingham New Talent Award for her performance at the 2016 Galway Film Fleadh. ‘A Date for Mad Mary’ also shared the Best Film Award with Peter Foott’s ‘The Young Offenders’ at the leading Irish festival.
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Recent Irish Festival Winners
In last week’s festival news, Billy O'Brien's ‘I Am Not a Serial Killer’ took home the Audience Award at the Sitges Official Fantàstic Film Festival in Barcelona. The thriller which sees a homicidal teen hunt a supernatural killer premiered at SXSW in March.
Since then it was acquired by IFC Midnight at Cannes, received the Silver Méliès at the Strasbourg European Fantastic Film Festival.
‘Without Name’ from Lorcan Finnegan also picked up four of the seven jury awards at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, for Best Director, Best Film, Best Cinematography and Best Editing. Also a debut feature for the Irish director, ‘Without Name’ has screened at TIFF alongside the work of veteran Irish filmmakers such as Aisling Walsh (Maudie) and Jim Sheridan (Secret Scripture).
