Between March 18-22, the Silk Road Film Festival will offer for the third time across the city of Dublin an exclusive array of Asian, Arab, Persian, Middle Eastern, African, Mediterranean and European cinema.
Inspired to forge connections between cultures and facilitate international contact between filmmakers, the Festival’s directors – who are also filmmakers - Carla Mooney, Steinar Oli Jonsson, Delwyn Mooney have founded the Silk Road Film Festival, striving to incite fruitful collaborations at the intersection of cinema, arts and business.
The Silk Road Film Festival (SRFF) welcomes productions from regions, which were once part of the historical network of ancient trade routes of the great Silk Road. The 2015 edition will showcase a diverse range of features, documentaries, animations, short films and student films. In addition to the 'Offline' program, the organisers will introduce the Silk Road Film Festival 'Online' where viewers from across the world can watch exclusive films, documentaries and animations from the official selection during the Festival.
Apart from film screenings, the SRFF features premieres, exhibitions including the Silk Road Photo Exhibition, chats with industry guests and masterclasses. During the second edition of the Festival, the critically acclaimed Iranian cinematographer Mahmoud Kalari held a masterclass where he presented a scene by scene breakdown of the award winning films ‘A Separation’ and ‘Fish & Cat’.
For this year’s edition, the Festival directors have announced the participation of the three time Oscar winning cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (‘Apocalypse Now’, ‘Reds’ and ‘The Last Emperor’). He will be presented with a lifetime achievement award during the opening night of the Festival at the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin Castle in the presence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin Christy Burke. Vittorio Storaro will hold a masterclass on the art of cinematography, discussing films from Bernardo Bertolucci, Francis Ford Coppola, Warren Beatty and Carlos Saura. The masterclass will be held on the 20th March, 7.15pm in the Edmund Burke Theatre at Trinity College Dublin and is supported by Screen Training Ireland and Trinity College Dublin.
Besides creating a platform for international filmmakers to network and promote their work, the Festival’s directors aspire to give student filmmakers an opportunity to showcase their work on an international scale and have thus established a student filmmaking competition as part of Film Festivals Cinergy. This is a union of film festivals around the world, aiming to promote talents in filmmaking and to foster cross-cultural collaboration. Sponsored by Production Minds and the Sports & Cultural Council for the City of Dublin, two students from the Irish School of Animation and Film at Ballyfermot College of Further Education won a prize at SRFF 2014 which allowed them to enter their films into the festival and travel to Notre Dame University International Film Festival, Lebanon in November 2014.
The SRFF is opening its third edition with a new vision - the illustrator Julianna Szabo from Hungary has hand crafted 3D paper letters of the SRFF initials, representing the countries along the road.
With over 500 submission from over 80 countries internationally, there will be over 145 films shown including features, animations, documentaries, shorts and students from 70 countries.
SRFF 2015 is supported by Dublin City Council, Trinity College Dublin, Filmsaz Iran, Haghighi Persian Carpets, Gudwrk Agency and Turkish Airlines.
For detailed information on participating countries, film selection and events throughout the Festival visit http://silkroadfilmfestival.com/.
