In 2005 Solas Nua - a U.S. organisation dedicated to promoting the contemporary Irish arts - produced its first annual Irish film festival. Entitled ‘Amharc Eile’ and featuring the work of over 50 female directors working in Irish cinema, the festival has since taken on the title of The Capital Irish Film Festival and looks to celebrate all features of Irish cinema. We spoke with artistic director, Linda Murray about the upcoming event which runs from the 2nd to the 11th of December.
The festival is now the largest Irish film festival in the United States and shows more Irish language films than any other American film festival. The shorts that will screen this year include David O’Sullivan’s ‘Moore Street Masala’; Joel Simon’s ‘Days Like This’, ‘Forty Foot’ by Leticia Agudo, Aoibheann O’Sullivan and Paul McGrath; and Aaron O’Reilly’s ‘Tog Mise Leat’.
The festival will also show several Irish features including Paul Fraser’s ‘My Brothers’; John and Kieran Carney’s ‘Zonad’; Cartoon Saloon’s ‘The Secret of Kells’; Mark O’Connor’s ‘Between the Canals’ and Marian Quinn’s ‘32A’. This year, the festival has also partnered with Ireland’s Darklight Festival and Darklight’s director, Nicky Gogan will host two sessions at the event - Darklight: State of the Nation and Darklight Heroes: DC Editions.
In our Q&A, Linda Murray talks about how the festival came about, what the highlight’s are this year and how she is cultivating her own little Gaeltacht area in Washington DC.
IFTN: How did Solas Nua come about?
Linda Murray: The film festival is actually part of a larger organisation called Solas Nua. Solas Nua started back in December 2004 and we got our non-profit status in America in 2005. It was myself, my now husband, Dan, a guy called Noel Quinn from Dublin as well and another friend of ours from DC called Laura Nunn who started the organisation. Noel left very early in the process, he was only around for the first couple of events. But Laura is still on our board and Dan and I are still involved.
IFTN: And how did the Capital Irish Film Festival then come about?
Linda Murray:We had films from the get-go with Solas Nua, and in the first year we had theatre, film and literature. From the first year, I actually wanted to showcase women directors from Ireland. DC doesn’t really have an Irish-American population to speak of, so we were trying to find ways to build into other communities in order to pull in an audience – so I thought ‘Why don’t we focus on women in Irish cinema?’ There is a big organisation called Women in Film and Video, so we tried to partner with organisations like that to get the festival up and running.
IFTN: And when did you decide to concentrate less on the female side of things?
Linda Murray:After a couple of years of doing the dramatic festivals we realised that there was enough interest there to just have an Irish film festival and call it what it was. And it also gave us an opportunity to go after more of the films that were coming out over the last couple of months rather than trying to select films based on overriding ideas.
In 2008 we renamed it as the Capital Irish Film Festival, and then last year it grew to be the largest Irish Film Festival in the US. And then, in 2008, we gave the Film Festival its own website.
IFTN: So you’ve seen growth despite the economic situation?
Linda Murray:Yes, the audience grows every year, as does the press coverage. The festival has gone from being a four-day to a ten-day festival, so the desire to see more work is definitely there. For instance, the opening night film will be in the largest independent cinema in DC, E-Street cinema, and it will be in their largest theatre which is a 235-seater.
IFTN: An important part of the festival’s programming seems to be Irish language films, is this something you feel strongly about?
Linda Murray:I am very passionate about the Irish language, so it has always been a priority for me that we have Irish Language programming in the festival. My feeling is that if you screen it, people will come. There are subtitles for all the films and I think that films like ‘Yu Ming is Ainm Dom’ and such gems can be appreciated around the world. The other thing is that in the past year or two we have started teaching Irish language classes, so now we have a little burgeoning audience who are really excited to come to the films.
IFTN: This year’s festival also sees you partnering with Ireland’s Darklight festival – how did that come about?
Linda Murray:I love Darklight, I think it’s a great festival! What I like about Darklight is that it’s about non-traditional approaches to getting work made, and championing work that was made in unique ways. I love the curatorial aspect of Darklight like the guest curator sessions.
IFTN: What will the partnership actually involve?
Linda Murray:We are doing two sessions with Darklight. We are doing ‘Darklight Heroes: DC Editions’ and we are going to do a live Skype video link-up with the director or curator that Nicky chooses. Nicky will be here, but we are also going to get the curator she chooses involved with the video link-up so that they can be talking about why they selected that particular selection of films, so that they can still interact with the audience that comes to see the work.
Nicky then will do another session called ‘Darklight: State of the Nation’, where she is going to be picking work that she feels really reflects Ireland right now. Be it Ireland’s film making community or maybe just Ireland more largely, on a social or economic level. We’re going to use that as a way to open up the conversation and have a good dialogue reaching the audience on the work being made.
IFTN: What do you see as the highlights of this year’s line-up?
Linda Murray:The shorts this year are very, very strong. Audiences always seem to find the shorts most surprising because there are always little gems in there that catch the audience off guard and I really enjoy watching for that reaction! I think that ‘My Brothers’ is a beautiful film and that ‘Snap’ is incredibly strong. And we have Maya Derrington coming over to do a Q&A for ‘Pyjama Girls’ so it will be interesting to see how the Americans react to the pyjama girl culture, as well as the really thick North Dublin accents! It’s great when we get a director in town, and Marian Quinn is coming in as well for 32A so we’re spoilt for choice. Also, we are doing a really interesting session with Mark Cantan who will be in with James Phelan, director of 'The Ottoman Empire', doing a session after ‘The Alarms’ for local film makers here on how to get your first film made. There’s some really good stuff in there!
- The festival has this year introduced awards as part of the event. Three awards will be distributed at this year's festival; a Critic's Choice award for Best Feature and an Audience Award for both Best Feature and Best Short. Online voting will be available from December 2nd.
- The Capital Irish Film Festival will run from the 2nd to the 11th of December. For more information about the event visit www.irishfilmdc.org
