The Corona Cork Film Festival, which takes place from October 14th- 21st, has announced the line-up of Irish and international shorts competing for the festival’s top awards.
Since its inception in 1956, the short film has been an integral component of the festival. This year 40 Irish Shorts compete for the Absolut Award for Best Irish Short. The category, sponsored by alcohol distributor Barry Fitzwilliam Maxxium, will see the winner receive a cash prize of €6,000.
Competing shorts include Irvine Welsh’s ‘Nuts’, Steph Green’s ‘New Boy’, which recently scooped a top prize at the Dingle Film Festival, and three entries from award-winning filmmaker Ken Wardrop - ‘Scoring’, ‘Contagious’ and ‘Bongo Bong’.
The Best International Short Award will see 65 filmmakers from countries including Costa Rica, Bulgaria, Chile, Iceland, Iran, Sweden, USA and Australia battle it out for a cash prize of €4,000.
European short films will also compete for the Prix UIP Cork which includes a cash prize of €2,000 and a nomination in the short film category of the European Film Awards.
The festival continues to support local filmmakers, with 17 locally produced shorts competing for the Irish Examiner Made in Cork Award, which has a monetary value of €1,000. Entries include Conor Heffernan’s ‘Strangely Strange But Oddly Normal’; Barry McCarthy’s ‘Making Pictures’ and Ciara Kennedy’s ‘Egg’.
"This year, the number of short film entries submitted into the Corona Cork Film Festival has exceeded that of all previous years with the festival receiving over 2,734 shorts,” said Mick Hannigan, Director of the festival. “It gives me great pleasure to note that even though the numbers have significantly increased, that there has been no let up in the quality of the entrants.”
Tickets for all events and the festival catalogue can be purchased from early October at the Corona Cork Film Festival Box Office which is situated at 56 Patrick's Street, Cork. The festival programme and tickets will also be available online at www.corkfilmfest.org.
