Terry McMahon’s feature film ‘Patrick’s Day’ has officially been selected to have its world premiere at the prestigious South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival in Texas, which takes place between March 7th and 16th 2014.
The film was chosen from a selection of over 6000 international submissions to the festival, which takes place in Austin, Texas, each year and offers a unique converging of original music, independent films and emerging technologies.
‘Patrick’s Day’ is an unflinching drama which follows a young man with mental health issues who becomes intimate with a suicidal air hostess but his obsessive mother enlists a dysfunctional cop to separate them. The film is set in Dublin and the midlands.
It is McMahon’s second film after ‘Charlie Casanova’, the controversial film which gained him an IFTA nomination, and stars New Zealander Kerry Fox (Shallow Grave, Sex & Violence), Waterford actor Moe Dunford (Vikings, Raw, The Tudors) in his first major film role, Catherine Walker (Dark Touch, Leap Year), and veteran English actor Philip Jackson (My Week with Marilyn, Little Voice).
‘Patrick’s Day’ was produced by Tim Palmer (A Kiss for Jed, The Last of the High Kings, Into the West) and co-produced by Rachel Lysaght (Dreams of a Life, The Pipe) for Ignition Film Productions with support from the Irish Film Board.
McMahon commented on the announcement saying: "The Texan embrace of ‘Patrick’s Day’ is staggering and to be selected for the SXSW Narrative Spotlight category, alongside world premieres from mavericks like Robert Duvall, John Malkovich, Rosario Dawson, and Alfred Molina makes us all the more proud to dedicate these SXSW screenings to our own imprisoned maverick, Margaretta D'Arcy."
This selection continues the recent trend of Irish films at SXSW, where ‘Kelly & Victor’ and ‘Good Vibrations’ screened in 2013 as well as ‘Dollhouse’, ‘Dreams of a Life’, ‘Citadel’, ‘Foxes’ and ‘Joy’ in 2012.
John Logan’s TV series Penny Dreadful will also feature at the festival in a section entitled Episodic, which focuses on innovative new work aimed squarely at the small screen. Logan will be doing a special discussion with the IFTA Academy on Saturday February 15th in Dublin.
The full line-up for the SXSW Film Festival can be viewed here
