Galway Film Fleadh 2011

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Wednesday, 29 June 2011 10:00

Written by L E Shannon

Galway Film Fleadh runs July 5 - 10, 2011 at Galway Film Fair, Galway Omniplex and Townhall Theatre, located around Galway, Ireland.

The Galway Film Fleadh returns for its 23rd year to continue its goal of bringing together audiences and filmmakers in an intimate environment to share the wonder of cinema. The Fleadh’s diverse audience includes the general cinema going public, film buffs, student filmmakers, industry professionals and invited guests.

A Cinemobile, a state-of-the-art 100-seat mobile theater, is also presenting Fleadh films at various locations in the County.

Special Events include:

• Cinema, Human Rights and Advocacy Summer School, presented by the Irish Centre for Human Rights and the Huston School of Film & Digital Media, NUI Galway
• The Real Deal: The Business of Creativity, the Irish film conference presented by the Irish Film Board with Galway Film Fleadh
• Screening The Ballad of Des and Mo, directed by John Fair, made for the 72Hour Film Project at the Melbourne International Film Festival
• The 30-Minute Film Festival is 30 short films, each one minute long. Film experts and novices alike were invited to use mobile phones and submit their one-minute films via YouTube.

The Fleadh will also host a strong contingency of Irish talent this year with a number of Irish debut features, including

• John Michael McDonagh’s comedy The Guard
• Rebecca Daly’s The Other Side of Sleep
• Alexandra McGuinness’ Lotus Eaters
• Terry McMahon’s Charlie Casanova

This year‛s Director in Focus: David Mackenzie. Four of his films are to be shown:

• Hallam Foe
• Young Adam
• You Instead
• Perfect Sense

The Fleadh features the Irish premiere of Disney/Pixar’s latest animated feature Cars 2, the sequel to the wildly successful movie Cars, directed by John Lasseter, with the voices of Owen Wilson, Larry the Cable Guy, Michael Caine and Eddie Izzard.

The screening will be preceded by a special selection of Cars Toons, short films starring the cast of Cars that have never been seen on the big screen before.

The Closing film is Mike Mills’ Beginners, starring Christopher Plummer and Ewen McGregor.

The Fleadh films are in several tracks:

• New Irish Cinema
• World Cinema
• Feature Documentary
• Classic German Cinema
• New German Cinema
• Northern Lights: Iceland
• Back To Nature
• Wild Cards
• On The Box
• Super8 Shots

Feature documentaries include:

Blazing The Trail: The O’Kalems In Ireland
dir. Peter Flynn (Ireland/USA)
The "O’Kalems" is the name given to a small group of motion picture pioneers, led by actor/director Sidney Olcott and actor/writer Gene Gauntier of New York’s Kalem Company. Between 1910 and 1915 they produced almost 30 (mostly short) films dealing with Ireland and Irish subjects, filmed in and around Killarney, Co. Kerry. The O’Kalem films "were not only the earliest fiction films produced in Ireland, but also the first American fiction films shot in Europe. They offered American audiences unprecedented representations of Ireland, its history and people, and provided a powerful corrective to stereotypes that had, up until then, dominated the American stage and screen."

Two of the eight surviving Kalem films will also be screened with live musical accompaniment: The Lad From Old Ireland (1910) and His Mother (1912).

Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey
dir. Lelia Doolan (Ireland)
The world premiere of a new documentary which brings us up to date on Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, the Belfast political activist who in 1969 became the youngest woman ever elected to the UK Parliament. She has continued her constant fight for civil rights in Northern Ireland for over 40 years. McAliskey and the director will be present.

Unlawful Killing
dir. Keith Allen (UK)
This is "the true story of the violent death of Princess Diana and her partner Dodi Fayed, and the subsequent cover-up by the British Establishment, culminating, after a decade of delay, in an inquest held at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Keith Allen was at the centre of the inquest, covertly observing proceedings in the courtroom and amongst the press. His groundbreaking documentary recreates key moments from the inquest, and demonstrates how the cover-up was perpetrated." The film is being shown publicly for the first time, since its controversial screening in Cannes.

Eco Pirate: The Story of Paul Watson
dir. Trish Dolman (Canada)
This documentary chronicles the extraordinary life of one of the most controversial figures in the environmental movement as he continues his fight to stop the illegal poachers of the world.

Gnarr
dir. Gaukur Úlfarsson (Iceland)
"When the developed world was booming, the bankers and stockbrokers thought the gravy train would never end. We all know what came next... In no time, Iceland went from being the spoiled bastard child of Scandinavia... to being bankrupt. If this wasn’t enough, the very earth under the Icelanders feet started erupting, spitting thick layers of volcanic ash all over the world and stopping air traffic." Then along came Iceland‛s answer to Al Franken. John Gnarr‛s Best Party presented a platform so simple and outrageous that -- well, darned if it didn‛t start catching on.

Following the screening, a discussion between members of the Best Party and prominent Irish commentators will take place, comparing the responses of Ireland and Iceland to the crisis.

Some of the narrative features to be screened are:

Stella Days
dir. Thaddeus O'Sullivan
writ. Antoine O'Flaharta
starring Martin Sheen, Stephen Rea, Amy Huberman, Marcella Plunkett, Tom Hickey, Ruth McCabe
A priest attempts to set up a cinema in rural 1950’s Ireland, despite opposition from parishioners. Sheen will be attending the premiere and will also take part in a public interview.

White Irish Drinkers
dir. / writ. John Gray
starring Nick Thurston, Geoffrey Wigdor, Karen Allen, Stephen Lang, Peter Riegert, Lesley Murphy
An 18-year-old in Brooklyn feels forced to choose between two ways of life: petty crime with his brother, or the stifling 9-to-5 route his friends want. He yearns to choose a third way, if he only knew what it was -- even though it‛s right in front of him.

A Family
dir. Pernille Fischer Christensen, co-wr. Kim Fupz Aakeson  (Denmark)
starring Jesper Christensen, Lene Maria Christensen, Pilou Asbæk
A young woman is arrives at a point where she must choose between her family in Denmark and her future in New York -- but she wants to have both.

Circus Fantasticus
dir./writ. Janez Burger (Slovenia/Ireland/Finland/Sweden)
A man stays alone with his children in a half-demolished house in the middle of a war zone, his wife just killed by a grenade. Along comes the traveling Circus Fantasticus, which stops by the house with their dying director. "Is it possible for anything beautiful to happen in a landscape of war and death?" This film is without dialogue -- but it doesn't need any. If a picture is worth a thousand words, the currency for this film is universal.

In addition to the films, the Fleadh offers

• Masterclasses
• Public Interviews
• Debates
• Workshops
• Seminars

With its own unique features along with an array of superb films, Galway Film Fleadh is easily equal to -- and in some cases better than -- film festivals in more glamorous cities.

For more information, go to www.galwayfilmfleadh.com.

Galway Film Fleadh
July 5 - 10, 2011

Galway Omniplex
Galway Retail Park
Headford Road
Galway, Ireland

Townhall Theatre
Courthouse Square
Galway
353-91-569-777

Galway Film Fair
Radisson Blu Hotel & Spa
Lough Atalia Road
Galway
353-91-538-300

Cinemobile
www.cinemobile.net

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