Two Irish shorts are set to screen at the 54th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, which takes place from 1st-6th May 2008. Naomi Wilson’s ‘An Cailleach Bhéarra’ will screen in the International Competition while Simon Fitzmaurice’s ‘The Sound of People’ will compete in the Children’s and Youth Film category.
The shorts will screen alongside 130 other films from 47 countries, chosen from 5,840 submissions. Filmmakers will battle it out in four different categories – International, Children’s and Youth Film, German Shorts and the MuVi Award for Best German Music Video, for cash prizes totaling €38,500.
‘An Cailleach Bhéarra’ is one of 62 entries in the International Competition, which includes shorts from Cuba, Kazakhstan, Colombia and Morocco. The short is based on stories about the 'cailleach' or old woman that were collected in a book about the character.
‘The Sound of People’, which also screened at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, will compete with 41 other entries from filming including Germany, UK, Denmark and Sweden. The short, which stars IFTA-nominated actor Martin McCann (Closing the Ring, My Boy Jack) follows and eighteen year old boy, who in a single moment, makes contact with his past and future and staring into the face of his own death, becomes aware that he is alive.
For more info and a full festival line-up go to www.kurzfilmtage.de.
