The Darklight Film Festival, in association with the Irish Film Board, is set to premiere the first wave of IFB funded ‘Virtual Cinema’ shorts at the Lighthouse Cinema, Smithfield at 6.30pm on Friday June 27th, with two digital filmmaking symposia taking place before the film screening.
The Virtual Cinema initiative, which aims to produce high-quality Irish shorts suited to the new forms of digital video consumption, saw ten shorts produced by a group of upcoming Irish filmmakers.
The filmmaking symposia, coordinated by digital media technology specialists Wildwave, will take place in the Lighthouse Cinema and focus on low-budget and online filmmaking.
’This is the Hour: Not Just Another Low-Budget Filmmaking Symposium’, takes place at 2pm. Hosted by digital studio Warp X head Barry Ryan, participants include Darklight Director Nicky Gogan from Still Films and IFB production executive Alan Maher. The symposium, which is open to anyone to attend, will discuss the pros and cons of low budget filmmaking, at a time when independent film funding is steadily decreasing.
A second symposium, ‘Decoding Online Filmmaking: From Webisodes to Viral Marketing’ kicks off at 4pm in the Light House. Chaired by Stephen McCormack (Wildwave), panelists include ‘Sofia’s Diary’ producer Triona Campbell, Bebo Ireland head of sales Philip McCartney and Darklight viral guru Fionn Kidney (Strategem). The symposium will examine what works and what doesn’t in the online filmmaking arena
The ten Virtual Cinema shorts screening are:
Paddy Courtney’s ‘Don't Leave Me Hanging’
Billy Walsh’s ‘Deer Park’
Cecilia McAllister’s ‘Paranoid Fat Chick Gets Fired
Boru’s ‘When Nuns Attack’
Eamonn Carey’s ‘A Facebook Fatwa’
Jesse Ward and Sue Morrell’s ‘The Athenroydes’
Frances Roe’s ‘Stay Out Of My Bag’
Rachael O'Kane’s ‘Chipper’
Simon Eustace’s ‘The Perils Of Internet Dating’
Trish Grove and Fiona Ashe’s ‘Rapunzel - The Blonde Years’.
The screening will be followed by an informal networking session and IFB hosted reception.
For a full Darklight 2008 festival line-up go to www.darklight.ie/.
