A host of Irish titles have screened to US audiences at the recent San Francisco Irish Film Festival, The Chicago Irish Film Festival and the current CRAIC Festival running from 12-15 March in NYC.
Aidan Quinn will be in attendance at the Craic Festival in NYC tonight, for the Friday night gala screening of ‘32 A’ in which he stars. Directed by Marian Quinn ‘32A’ is a coming of age story set in Ireland back in the 1970’s. Steve McQueen’s IFTA winning ‘Hunger’ opened the festival on Thursday night which will also see Magma Films ‘Summer of the Flying Saucer’ screen as part of the Kids Fleadh as well as Lenny Abrhamson’s ‘Garage’, Liam Nolan and Ross Whitaker’s ‘Saviours’ and the Kíla Concert Film ‘Once Upon A Time’. The festival also includes an Irish a music line up with Irish acts such as Paddy Casey, Duke Special, Colin Devlin and Fight Like Apes all performing.
For the recent San Francisco Irish Film Festival, which ran from 5 – 6 March, the festival opened with the short ‘Hardy Bucks’ and feature doc ‘Saviours’. ‘32a’ also screened as well as the Magners Shorts program composed of Irish shorts which included a repeat showing of the Oscar nominated short ‘New Boy’ by Steph Green.
Over 200 people attended the opening night celebration, hosted by Consul General of Ireland Mr. Gerry Staunton and Vice Consul Mr. Barry O'Brien, the Irish Network of San Francisco and Festival Director Niall McKay, cementing the party as an annual event on the San Francisco Irish calendar.
“The quality of the films this year was phenomenal,” said Niall McKay, director of the San Francisco Irish Film Festival. “We sold out each night because our audience know that they are going to get a great show.”
The Chicago Irish Film Festival celebrated it’s 10th year from March 6 - 11 and opened with a shorts program, screening a host a recent Irish shorts including the IFTA winning ‘Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty’ (Nicky Phelan) and ‘The Door’ (Juanita Wilson).
Other titles that screened were ‘The Ugly Duckling and Me!’, Lance Daly’s ‘Kisses’, and the docs ‘Chippers’ (Nino Tropiano), ‘Sea Fever’ (Ken Sullivan) and ‘Frederick Douglass and the White Negro’ (John J. Doherty) and ‘Fight or Flight’ (Peter J. McCarthy, Shane Sutton).
