Irish actress Fionnula Flanagan is to be awarded with the Maureen O’Hara Award at Kerry Film Festival, which runs from October 29th to November 5th.
IFTA winning actress Flanagan has appeared in features including ‘James Joyce’s Women’, ‘Ulysses’, ‘Waking Ned’, ‘A State of Emergency’, ‘Reflections’, ‘Final Verdict’, ‘In The Region of Ice’ and ‘Some Mother’s Son’. Flanagan also recently appeared in the ‘The Guard’, the most successful Irish independent film of all time.
”I am delighted and very honoured to be invited to receive the Maureen O'Hara Award at the Kerry Film Festival 2011. It is fitting and generous of Maureen to lend her name to an award that acknowledges the work of actresses following in her footsteps,” commented Flanagan. ”I am proud to be able to support the Kerry Film Festival since in these troubling economic times, not just for Ireland, but for the whole world, I believe it is important to keep the arts alive. It is the painters, the poets, the storytellers, the film makers who give us all a different way of looking at life, who remind us of our frailty, our longing, and our potential.”
The award, sponsored by Killarney Crystal, acknowledges women who have excelled in film. Past recipients of the Maureen O’Hara award include Juliette Binoche, Rebecca Miller and Brenda Fricker. It will be presented to Fionnula by Maureen O’Hara at the Award ceremony at Siamsa Tíre in Tralee at 2.00pm on November 5th, which will be hosted by Dave Fanning.
Kerry Film Festival takes place from October 29th to November 5th. For more information visit www.kerryfilmfestival.com.
