The San Francisco Irish Film Festival will co-present Niall McKay’s ‘The Bass Player: A Song For Dad’ and Conor McPherson’s ‘The Eclipse’ at the Mill Valley Film Festival in California on the 9th and 11th of October respectively.
As previously reported on IFTN, ‘The Bass Player: A Song for Dad’ will receive its North-American Premiere at the Mill Valley Festival. The film tells two stories – the first is that of director, Niall McKay’s father Jim’s return to Ireland from Switzerland following the death of his wife Anna. The second explores the events of Niall’s childhood with an abusive, alcoholic mother through interviews with both Niall and Jim. The documentary was shot in Ireland, France, Switzerland and the USA. The music that accompanies the documentary was scored by Niall’s father and Jazz musician Jim. The film was written by Niall McKay and produced by Seamus Duggan. The editors of the project were Tony Cranstoun and Carlo Kamin and it was shot by Niall McKay and Marissa Aroy.
Also showing at the festival is Conor McPherson’s ‘The Eclipse’, starring Ciarán Hinds and Aidan Quinn. It tells the tale of widower Michael Farr who volunteers at an Irish literary festival and becomes intrigued by female author Lena – the object of another man’s affections, author Nicholas Holden. As Lena and Michael draw closer he confesses that he is haunted physically by his wife. The film is produced by Robert Walpole and was written by Conor McPherson and Billy Roche. The director of photography was Ivan McCullough and it was edited by Emer Reynolds.
‘Song for Dad’ will be screened at 9.00pm on Friday, October 9th at the Sequoia Theatre in Mill Valley, California with live musical accompaniment and again on Sunday, October 11th at 7.30pm in the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Centre.
‘The Eclipse’ will be screened on Sunday, October 11th at 8.15pm in the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Centre where it will again be screened on Wednesday, October 14th at 9.15pm.
A non-competitive event, the Mill Valley Film Festival, now in its 32nd year, showcases international features, documentaries, shorts and children's films, annually welcoming over 200 filmmakers to the festival.
