The Corona Cork Film Festival is delighted to pay tribute to renowned British filmmaker Terence Davies who is one of the greatest celebrated directors. Terence Davies will attend the festival for the screening of Of Time and the City, a film which was highly acclaimed at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.
The 53rd Corona Cork Film Festival which is taking place from October 12-19 will open with the screening of Burn After Reading which is the latest Coen Brothers Film and stars Brad Pitt and George Clooney. For eight days and eight nights the festival will screen over 300 films before closing with the screening of The Silence of Lorna which is directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne.
A film not to miss is Hunger which won the Camera d’Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and was written by Enda Walsh. Hunger tells the story of Bobby Sands, focusing on his final days of his hunger strike at the Maze Prison in 1981.
Well known to Irish audiences as a razor witted panellist on Have I got News for You, British comedian Paul Merton will attend the festival for the screening of his show Silent Clowns which combines screenings of memorable moments from the pre-talkie era with his own inimitable commentary. Further gems in the festival include Goodbye Solo which tells the story of a young Senegalese taxi driver who is hired by a stoic 70 year old man to help him commit suicide and Brideshead Revisited which is Julian Jarrold’s latest feature.
Peter Greenaway will give the inaugural lecture in a series to commemorate the passing of a former Festival Director, Donal Sheehan and will also present his latest feature film Nightwatching. The Festival will also pay tribute to Robbie Ryan one of Ireland’s leading cinematographers.
Leading the way in the international documentaries is Heavy Load a film about an English punk band that is made up of musicians with and without learning disabilities.
Remembering the Children deals with the fate of Jewish children under the Vichy regime in France while Blast is about an international team of astrophysicists who travel from the Artic to the Antarctic. An Irish documentary of note is Seo Man which is an honest and affectionate profile of Niall Toibin.
The festival is delighted to present the world premiere of BC/AD, the last work by the late artist Ian Breakwell in which he eloquently confronts his mortality.
The festival is internationally recognised as a leading showcase for the short film format and will screen several programme of shorts which will showcase local, national and international shorts. A highlight of the Outlook Programme is Mise Aerach which is a retrospective look at gay short filmmaking in Ireland. Filmmakers will also be given the opportunity to compete for several prestigious awards.
New additions to the programme include a special programme of New Arab Cinema and the screening of a diverse selection of award winning Mexican shorts. The Corona Cork Film Festival will also offer free special screenings for students in UCC and CIT.
Michael Barry of Barry & Fitzwilliam, distributors of Corona Extra said, ‘We are especially pleased to see that Mexican Short Films will be screened as part of the programme- a good fit for the Corona Extra brand which emanates from Mexico. It is also great to see the Festival showing film on campus at University College Cork and Cork Institute of Technology- this initiative will grow audiences and foster a greater appreciation of film and creativity in general’.
A further new element of the Festival programme are a series of screenings which are specifically designed to suit all the family and will include a performance by Canadian Super 8 Guru John Porter.
Tickets for all screenings are available on www.corkfilmfest.org
and in the Festival Box Office which is located in Merchants Quay Shopping Centre, Patrick’s Street, Cork (Tel: 021 4272263).
