The 7th Guth Gafa International Documentary Film Festival opened last night in Malin village with a huge crowd of local people and international visitors arriving to the northernmost point in Ireland.
Last night’s special opening screening was Malik Bendjelloul’s ‘Searching for Sugarman’, the Best Feature Documentary winner at this year’s Oscars.
Guth Gafa co-director, Neasa Ní Chianáin, officially launched the festival prior to the screening of the film and explained Guth Gafa's role and mission as primarily a human rights documentary festival.
Neasa was followed by Martin Melarkey from Derry City of Culture, who expressed his delight at seeing the fruits of the collaboration between Malin and Derry; with films this year to be screened in Derry as part of its year-long UK City of Culture celebration.
Co-director David Rane also spoke of the festival’s unique location: “It’s a great place to locate it; it’s such a stunningly beautiful area. Films like Vic Sarin’s ‘A Shine of Rainbows’ and more recently ‘Grabbers’ have been shot up here and by bringing filmmakers from around the world to Inishowen and Malin, it gives them the opportunity to view these areas as possible filming locations. They are always blown away by the beauty of the peninsula.”
15 International filmmakers will be in Malin this weekend for the festival, including Miri Laufer, who co-directed the award winning ‘One Day after Peace’ and Bosse Lindquist with ‘Give Us the Money’.
Jorg Jeshel, director of photography on the visually spectacular ‘More Than Honey’, which will be screened at the festival, will lead a workshop on cinematography which is supported by Screen Training Ireland and the Irish Film Board.
As for tonight’s programme, the documentary ‘Soundbreaker’, one of the highlights of this year’s festival, will screen at the Foyle Theatre in Derry. The documentary focuses on multi-award wining Finnish accordion virtuoso Kimmo Pohjonen, who will also perform an intimate live gig, enhanced by various electronics and lighting and sound effects directly following the screening.
For more information on the festival, visit guthgafa.com.
