The programme for the third Hay Festival (running in Kells from 25th-28th June) is offering audiences a major cinematic strand, featuring Sundance and IFTA winners, Oscar nominees, leading lights in Irish cinema, Irish premieres, and insights into the creative process.
Director Lenny Abrahamson (Adam and Paul, Garage, Frank), producer Ed Guiney of Element Pictures (The Guard, What Richard Did), and writer Malcolm Campbell (What Richard Did) will be exploring the “creative triangle” of writer, producer and director, in a panel discussion chaired by Darragh Byrne (‘Parked’).This discussion will explore how power and creative control shifts between members of this team - and how this multiple authorship affects the auteur theory that the director is the creative author of the film.
Cartoon Saloon’s Fabien Erlighauser will be giving a visual presentation on the process involved in creating the Oscar-nominated, IFTA-winning animated feature film ‘Song of the Sea’, including behind-the-scenes clips from the soon-to-be-released film. Fabien will also be running character design workshops for younger artists aged 9-14.
GuthGafa International Documentary Festival will be presenting two films during the festival. ‘How to Change the World’ tells the story of the birth of Greenpeace and the seat-of-the-pants adventures of a group of activists who sailed into a nuclear test zone in 1971. The film was the winner of the World Cinema Documentary Jury Award for Editing at Sundance Film Festival this year. ‘The Stranger’ is a haunting documentary about Neal McGregor, a 44-year-old English artist who died in the stone shed where he lived on the small Donegal island of Inisbofin, leaving behind only volumes of secret diaries and animal carvings, and remaining a mystery to the Irish-speaking island community he lived among.
On the final evening of the festival, there will be a screening of ‘Parked’, the multi-award-winning first feature by Kells-based director Darragh Byrne, starring Colm Meaney as a man down on his luck who moves back to Ireland. Total Film has described this film as, ‘Possibly the gentlest, sweetest movie about junkies and homelessness you’re ever likely to see … this coming-of-middle-age comedy is an unexpected treat.’ This screening will be followed by a Q & A with the film’s producers Dominic Wright & Jacqueline Kerrin.
The full Hay Festival Kells 2015 programme of over seventy events is now live at www.hayfestival.com/kells and tickets are available for purchase. The programme is a celebration of great writing for all, and includes Marian Keyes, Lynda La Plante (Prime Suspect), Booker Winners Roddy Doyle, Anne Enright and Ben Okri, and events focused on North-South reconciliation, food and fashion.