The ‘Meeting the Authors’ festival will host a special screening of the multi-award winning documentary Paradiso', entirely filmed in Derry, at the Theatre Campana in Osimo, Italy, on 21st April.
'Paradiso' - directed by Alessandro Negrini and produced by Derry filmmaker Margo Harkin (Besom Productions) - has already garnered a long list of international awards from around the world, receiving 17 international prizes and more than 50 nominations in film festivals.
These honours include ‘Best Documentary’ at Hungary’s Slow Film Festival 2009; ‘Best Documentary’ at India’s Global Cinema Festival 2009; the ‘Audience Award’ at Germany’s Wurzburg Film Festival 2010; ‘Best Documentary’ at Dhaka International Film Festival in Bangladesh and ‘Best Documentary’ at the Arcipelago Rome Film Festival.
Set in the Fountain estate, Derry, the film is a colourful, melancholic and ironic musical depicting the attempts of local musician Roy Arbuckle to challenge, through music and dance, the Troubles’ legacy of fear.
The hour-long documentary, commissioned by BBC Northern Ireland, centres around a major dance night organised by Mr Arbuckle in a bid to get Protestants and Catholics dancing together again in a dying Protestant district.
The director of photography on the film is Odd-Geir Sæther, whose credits include David Lynch’s ‘Inland Empire’.
A link to the film's trailer can be found below:
