Dingle Film Festival director Maurice Galway has deemed the 4th Dingle Film Festival a major success following its March run. This year’s event, which saw actor Cillian Murphy, director Stephen Frears and producer Ned Dowd on its guest list, was held in March as opposed to its usual September slot resulting in a doubling of box office takings since last year.
The organisers of the 2010 Dingle Film Festival have much to celebrate following this year’s event which saw the screening of six Irish film titles and a doubling of the box office takings compared to 2009’s September festival. It is believed that an endorsement on holding the festival in March and a sign of the growing awareness of the festival with people visiting the festival nationally and internationally are to thank for the festival’s financial success.
The festival’s aim is to bring internationally acclaimed actors and filmmakers to Dingle. To that end actor Cillian Murphy (The Wind that Shakes the Barley) attended the screening of his latest film, ‘Perrier’s Bounty’, which opened the festival. Renowned director Stephen Frears, (The Snapper, Dangerous Liaisons and The Queen) received The Gregory Peck Award: For Excellence in the Art of Film, presented to him by top producer Ned Dowd, (Last of the Mohicans, Veronica Guerin, Apocalypto). Frears also gave a public interview, conducted by Film Critic John Maguire.
Where workshops and panel events were concerned sound artist Tom Johnson, (Titanic, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland) gave a talk on The Power of Sound; the RED Camera was represented by RED head of Europe Alan Piper; and Laura Castelli from Assimilate presented SCRATCH to an audience in The Phoenix Cinema. Furthermore Kevin Smart gave an introduction into the work of HoloVis. The panel also included Eric Mofford, Eugene McCrystal(Dublin) and Conor Horgan.
Brendan Touhy, chaired a group of experts on ‘The Future of Film in Ireland’ and the panel included head of business for The Irish Film Board, Teresa McGrane; MD of Ardmore Studios, Kevin Moriarty; Producer, Ed Guiney (Garage, Adam & Paul); Director, Paddy Breathnach (I Went Down, Man About Dog); Writer, Marc Flanagan (Tracey Ullman Show); and Film Critic, John Maguire.
Screening highlights included Eric Mofford introducing his film ‘Huston we have a problem’, Anthony Wall’s ‘Mugabe and the white African’ and Oli Hartbottle’s ‘Crude’. Following the RED seminar Conor Horgan presented his latest IFTA winning project, ‘One Hundred Mornings’ which was shot on RED. Edwina Forkin’s ‘Swansong’ also screened alongside Margaret Corkery’s debut feature project, ‘Eamon’. Paddy Breathnach gave a Q&A following a retrospective screening of his ‘I Went Down’ whilst Otto Schlindwein and performers from ‘Descendants’ were present at their screening and performed live before and after the screening. A number of Irish shorts were also represented including Aideen O Sullivan & Ross Whitaker’s ‘Buy Buy Now’ and Steph Green’s Oscar nominated ‘New Boy’.
Finally, the festival acted as a film set for a documentary about the event entitled ‘We’ll Always Have Dingle’. Directed by Geoff Wonfor (Beatles Anthology) the doc came about following Wonfor’s visit to the festival in 2009. Impressed by the passion and the energy of the festival Wonfor promised to return and shoot a feature documentary on the festival in 2010. The documentary looked to capture the festival throughout weekend and then continued to film following the festival for another 6 days. Produced by Diane Namm and Debbie Vandermeulen, with Line Producer Eric Moffard (24), and Director of Photography being Eugene O Connor ( Beatles Anthology, Killanascully), ‘We’ll Always have Dingle’ features interviews with guests at the 2010 festival. Musician and music buff Jools Holland will also star in the film. One of the guests at this year’s festival, the singer Mary Coughlan, has also come on board to provide music for particular scenes.
