Sunday, February 28th marks the final day of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. The seventh JDIFF launched Thursday, 18 Feb, saw the return of strands such as Irish talent spotlight, Special Screenings & Presentations and a Real to Reel documentary section. IFTN talked to festival director Gráinne Humphreys to see what this year’s event has offered and the highlights that are still to come.
The festival’s Irish Talent Spotlight, now in its third year, runs in association with the Irish Film Board. This year amongst others the festival will highlight IFTA nominated actor Darren Healy (Eamon, Savage) when ‘Savage’, a story about an innocent man whose life is changed completely when he is the victim of an unprovoked attack, screens as part of the Irish Cinema section in the Lighthouse Cinema.
Russian Cinema will be celebrated by the festival with the screening of Johnny O’Reilly’s Moscow based thriller, ‘The Weather Station’. There also remains several Special Presentations in the festival schedule such as ‘Retour de Flamme’, an eclectic selection of silent films with live musical accompaniment and ‘Partir’ starring the festival’s special guest Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient), which tells the tale of an unhappy housewife who tries to leave her husband. Furthermore, the film adaptation of Stieg Larson’s Millennium trilogy, ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ and Woody Allen’s ‘Whatever Works’ will both screen in the last three days of the festival.
The event’s Kenneth Anger retrospective programme will screen three of the filmmaker’s celebrated films; ‘Invocation of my Demon Brother’, ‘Rabbit’s Moon’ and ‘Lucifer Rising’, and will conclude with a Q&A session on Saturday, February 27th in the IFI. Festival director Gráinne Humphreys told IFTN she is especially proud of this section of the festival which sees the attendance of Kenneth. “We’re extremely excited to have brought the famously reclusive filmmaker to Ireland, let alone the festival,” she says.
access>CINEMA, in collaboration with the JDIFF, will host additional screenings of the award-winning Danish film ‘Applause’, a film that investigates the devastating nature of addiction, in venues outside of Dublin after their screening in the capital. The film will screen on Sunday, 28th February in Galway’s Town Hall Theatre and Tuesday, March 2nd in Waterford’s Storm Cinema.
Continuing the festival’s tradition for documentary screenings, the Real to Reel season will feature ‘Videocracy’, an look at the aspirations of beauty in Italy today; ‘Pianomania’ which follows Steinway’s head technician, Stefan Knupfer; Patrick MacGill biopic, ‘Child of the Dead End’; an insight into the world of burlesque shows in ‘Behind the Burly Q’ and ‘La Danse’ which follows the Paris Opera Ballet.
The festival will close with the Gala screening of ‘I am Love’, which tells the tale the wealthy industrial family, the Recchis, as they prepare to celebrate the birthday of their patriarch. The film is directed by Luca Guadagnino (The Protagonists) and stars Tilda Swinton (The Beach) who is a festival guest. Previous to this screening there will be a public interview with Tilda Swinton in the Lighthouse Cinema with RTÉ’s Vincent Woods.
This year’s JDIFF is dedicated to the memory of its co-founder and film critic, Michael Dwyer, and Gráinne tells IFTN that although he has sadly passed away his legacy lives on in the festival: “Michael was a friend of mine for 25 years,” she says. “I took over from him as director of the festival in 2008 but he was always so helpful, he was on my shoulder whenever I needed him – like an angel.
“He saw the draft of this year’s programmes in December and was very complimentary, which meant a lot. The main thing that he has left behind for us all is his mantra that we should think as big as we possibly can.”
As a tribute to Michael’s memory the festival has been screening a selection of Michael’s favourite films such as ‘My Favourite Launderette’, ‘I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing’ and ‘Best of Youth’. As Gráinne eloquently puts it, “we picked films that were as diverse as Michael himself was, the films that he watched and came out from with that wry smile on his face which meant they meant something to him.”
Following its conclusion on 28 February, the festival will have presented over 100 films from over 30 countries, six of them world premieres, with archive and premiere screenings, special guests, discussions and unique events, all over an action packed 11 days.
“Irish audiences are curious, they have a great appetite for film,” says Humphreys. When asked about the Film Festival’s goal to celebrate film as an art form she muses that this is as true today as when it was first decided upon: “As a proud film goer for years and years I find that the more I go to films, and as the years go by, audiences are being done a great disservice.
“At the same time, I don’t want people to feel intimidated, or create barriers. That’s why, for instance, we are having film screenings in Mountjoy Prison this year. Film is as much a work of art as a poem, a concert or paintings in a gallery and I don’t want people to forget that.”
For more information and to book tickets for any of the events above visit www.jdiff.com.
