The 60th annual Cork Film Festival kicks off on November 6th, also kicking off on November 6th is the Waterford Film Festival while Oscar contenders ‘Room’ and ‘Brooklyn’ both win at Twin Cities in Minnesota.
60th Annual Cork Film Festival kicks off on November 6th
The 60th annual Cork Film Festival commences on November 6th and runs until November 15th.
The 60th Edition will see four new Festival venues, an appearance by well-known British actor Simon Callow, a live performance by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, a commemoration of the 20th anniversary of Rory Gallagher’s passing and an Oscar-hopeful short movie by Irish actor Hugh O’Conor.
International films screening include the Irish premiere of Oscar contender ‘Carol’ starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. Cork also has a huge number of Irish films screening including ’11 Minutes’, ‘Strangerland’, ‘After The Dance’, ‘Brand New-U’, ‘Cloud of Skin’, ‘Deoch an Dorais (Name Your Poison)’, ‘Dergdhúil: Anatomy of Passion’, ‘Fading Away’, ‘Fortune’s Wheel’, ‘The Genius of George Boole’, ‘The Great Wall’, ‘The Legend of Longwood’, ‘Life is Sacred’, ‘Lost in the Living’, ‘Monged’, ‘Moscow Never Sleeps’, ‘Older Than Ireland’, ‘Shem the Penman Sings Again’, ‘Take the Boat’, ‘The Hallow’ and ‘Yo Cambio (I Change)’.
Cork also has seven Irish Shots Programmes as well as a Programme of Homegrown Cork short films.
2015 also sees the launch of the inaugural Talent Development Campus. Following the success of 2014’s Talent development programme we are delighted to expand upon this training and networking initiative and augment Cork as the site of development and learning for emerging film professionals.
In 2015, Cork will welcome over fifty film professionals from over 15 different countries to participate in this intensive training and networking campus. During the campus, participants will hear over forty industry experts and leaders from Ireland, UK, Europe and the US share their wealth of knowledge and experience and expound on the changing face of the film industry today.
Over the course of four days the Campus will see over ten training events teaching everything an independent filmmaker needs to know from: financing your work; marketing; distribution and audience development to innovations in transmedia content, digital technologies and branded cinema. The training will be interspersed with networking events where emerging filmmakers can meet peers from around the world to network and forge collaborations and partnerships.
The Cork Film Festival kicks off on November 6th and runs until November 15th.
Waterford Film Festival returns on November 6th
The Waterford Film Festival is now in its 9th year and will run from November 6th – 8th 2015. For a second year in a row Garter Lane Arts Centre will be hosting and all films will be screened on a full cinema screen with Dolby Surround Sound.
This year, Waterford have added on a fifth short film programme and they will be screening over 40 films during the weekend. There is a diverse mix of home based and foreign films that will be screened,from debut to professional filmmakers.
All types of genres will be shown from comedies, dramas, horrors, thrillers to documentaries.
Tickets can be purchased at the Garter Lane Box Office or at www.garterlane.ie.
Each year the festival gives a cash award of €500 and a certificate for the Waterford City & Council Award for Best Short Film. They also give an award for runners up for best short film.
In their screenplay competition there will be up to 20 finalists. Each finalist will receive a certificate and the overall winner will receive €500 plus access to a weeks’ worth of filming equipment and a weeks’ worth of editing facilities sponsored by FILMLAB. There is also an award for the runners up.
For more information on the 9th Annual Waterford Film Festival, go to www.waterfordfilmfestival.net.
Awards for ‘Room’ and ‘Brooklyn’ at Twin Cities
Irish films ‘Room’ and ‘Brooklyn’ have both added to their already impressive awards tally by both winning awards at the Twin Cities Film Festival in Minnesota.
Lenny Abrahamson’s ‘Room’ won the award for Best Film while John Crowley’s ‘Brooklyn’ won the Audience Award.
Twin Cities Film Fest Executive Director Jatin Setia said: “You look at daring stories like ‘Room’ and these are the kinds of journeys and characters that stick with you for a lifetime. Leaps of faith like that are why film festivals are so essential – the chance to discover great films before the rest of the world sees them, the chance to champion independent projects that deserve extra attention and the chance to talk about the art and the craft with the very artists who are making the next great movie.”
Period drama ‘Brooklyn’ – starring Saoirse Ronan and Domhnall Gleeson – is released to Irish cinemas on November 6th. This week, Ronan won a Hollywood Film Award for her performance in the film while Domhnall was nominated for a British Independent Film Award.
‘Room’ has won a host of awards since premiering to a standing ovation at Telluride in September – including the People’s Choice Award at Toronto – which is long seen as giving films a significant boost in the Oscar race.
‘Room’ is currently showing in cinemas in the US and will be released in Ireland on January 16th.
