Features
Divorcing Jack
David Caffery
1998 UK/ Ireland (110 mins)
It is 1999 and Northern Ireland is an independent State. Prime Minister elect, Michael Brinn, heralds a new world of peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland. Dan Starkey, wise-cracking, self-confessed drunk and journalist, stands alone amidst the flag waving euphoria, steadfastly unconvinced. With the help of a bemused American journalist, a gun toting nun, a maniac taxi-driver, and a disenchanted wife, Dan Starkey uncovers the truth behind Brinn’s rise to power. It is a story of cor-ruption and violence, murder and ab-duction, that leaves no-one unscathed, least of all Starkey.
The Race
Director: Andre F. Nebe
2009 Ireland/Germany (90 mins)
Colm Meaney, Susan Lynch, Niamh McGirr
Thirteen-year-old Mary lives on a farm in a small town and dreams of becoming a racing driver. Despite the disapproval of her parents and the local community, she enters a kart race with the hope of accomplishing her heartfelt ambitions. But as she builds the go-kart to take part in the race, Mary must face the break-up of her family and the prospect of a world of opportunity beyond the farm. The race is an inspirational drama in the best tradition of Billy Elliot – guar-anteed to warm the heart.
Wide Open Spaces
2009 / Ireland, UK (85 mins)
Director: Tom Hall
Ardal O’Hanlon, Ewen Bremner, Owen Roe, Morwenna Banks, Don Wycherley
Thirty-something slackers, Myles (Ardal O’Hanlon) and Austin (Ewen Bremner) are up to their necks in debt. In fact, each one of these layabouts is as useless as the other! Fate, however, has plans to remedy their lack of motivation. Up to their necks in debt, they decide to help a dodgy entrepreneur, Gerard (Owen Roe), to create a new landmark in Irish tour-ism: a Famine Theme Park. WIDE OPEN SPACES is an absurdist comedy about how breaking up with your best friend can be tougher than ditching a fiancée.
Shorts
Agricultural Report (2004) (3 mins)
Melina Sydney Padua
Boris
(2004) 3 mins
Director: Steven Burke
Shannon Airport, September 1994 Irish Government representatives wait for Boris Yeltsin. Unfortunately, El Presidente can’t meet the Irish delega-tion on the tarmac. Some plain talking on the Irish side escalates into a diplomatic incident.
Badly Drawn Roy (2006) (22 mins)
Alan Shannon
Blind Man’s Eye (2007) (6 mins)
Matthew Talboy Kelly
Dance Lexie, Dance
(1996) 14 mins
Director: Tim Loane
Laura, a 12 year old Protestant girl wants to be a Riverdancer when she grows up. However, with her mother dead, will her Dad, Lexie, help her?
Dental Breakdown
(2009) 5.5 mins
Director: Ian Power
A musical comedy about five reluctant student dentists whose eyes are opened to the cruel consolations of their career by a sadistic tutor. Warning: this may hurt a little.
Flying Saucer Rock ‘N’ Roll
(1997) 12 mins
Director: Michael & Enda Hughes
A toe tappin’ Rock ‘n’ Roll rebel (Ardal O’Hanlon) from Northern Ireland saves the planet from mute-ants, with only his hearing impairment, a trusty tractor, and a fertiliser/moonshine bomb. Brussels International Film Festival, January 1998 – Prix Canal+ Best European Short Fantasporto Portugal, February 1998 – Best short Film Fantasporto 1998.
Give Up Yer Auld Sins (2001) (4½ mins)
Cathal Gaffney
Guy’s Dog (1998) (10 mins)
Rory Bresnihan
James
(2008) 17 mins
Director: Connor Clements
Focusing on a boy in Northern Ireland iso-lated by his sexuality and alienated from his family due to his parent’s marital trou-bles, ‘James’ reaches out in desperation to his teacher for support and guidance.
50% Grey (2001) (3 mins)
Ruairi Robinson
Moore Street Masala
(2009) 3 mins
Director: David O’Sullivan Ireland’s first Bollywood movie. Shop Clerk Baba falls for the sezy estate agent across the street. When he sells her lunch, she steals his heart. There is only one way their love can make it.....Bollywood style!
Nobody Home
(2002) 3 mins
Director: Eamon Little
A dramatic day in the life of a remote answering machine, which leaves the viewer wondering about the real stories behind some of the cryptic messages left for the recipient.
OK Please (2006) (10 mins)
Joel Simon
Screwback
(2004) 10 mins
Director: Brian O’Malley
Harry thought his past was behind him. He was wrong. Harry must do one last job for his old boss. If he refuses, his young daughter dies.
Sugar Stick
(2009) 6 mins
Director: Laura Way
Mary is trapped in a toxic friendship. Miriam with her chain-smoking and vicious tongue, is that toxic friend. Morning tea and Vitrol...there is no smoke without fire.
Sunshower
(2009) 14 mins
Director: Liam Gavin
A very bizarre, meeting between two strangers on a chilly morning in the middle of nowhere... one, a teenage girl, drunk and driving a stolen car; the other, an old man who has escaped a hospice and is trying to find his way home.
The Confession
(2009) 4 mins
Director: Thomas Hefferon
A young man, Johnny Smith, goes to confess his sins but the priest seems more interested in gossiping about the local women than granting him absolu-tion.
Tufty
(2009) 8.5 mins
Directors: Jason & Brendan Butler
What if you knew where your teddy bear really came from? Maybe if you knew where your Teddy Bear came from you wouldn’t hug him so tightly.
Midnight Dance (1997) (12 mins)
John McCloskey
My Name Is Yu Ming / Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom
(2003) 12 mins
Director: Daniel O’Hara (Irish language with English subtitles)Yu Ming wishes to escape his dull life working in China. Randomly, he chooses Ireland to relocate to. Arriving in Dublin he is puzzled to find that nobody understands a word he says! Best International comedy at the Aspen Shorts-fest Film Festival.
The Pope’s Visit (2004) (6¾ mins)
Gary Blatchford
The Backward Boy (2004) (12 mins)
Nora Twomey Horn
35 – Aside
(1996) 26 mins
Director: Damien O’DonnellPhilip is being bullied at his new school. As his father is in prison, it falls to his mother to sort out his nasty classmates, which she does with stunning aplomb.
Undressing My Mother
(2004) 6 mins
Director: Ken Wardrop
This poignant documentary explores a woman’s unique take on her over-weight and aging body. Having recently turned sixty, Ethel continues to be self-assured and happy with the way she looks-European Short Film of the Year 2005
Feature Documentaries
The Bass Player: Song For Dad
Director: Niall McKay
2008 / Ireland/USA (62 mins)Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker Niall McKay takes us on a charming and witty journey from the depths of suicide and depression to the heights of new beginnings, marriage proposals and homecomings. The Bass Player explores Niall’s relationship with his Jazz musician father, Jim, who in the 1970’s raised his two young sons on his own in Dublin. Masterfully told, beautifully shot, and scored by Jim’s jazz mu-sic, this film questions what it means to be a son, a husband and a father.
Gabriel Byrne: Stories from Home
Director: Pat Collins
2008 / Ireland (76 mins)
Stories from Home is a revealing and evocative insight into the life and creative impulse of Gabriel Byrne, one of the leading actors of his generation. Blending home movies, contemporary footage and extracts from some of his films, this is an intimate profile, emanating from the man himself and giving the viewer a rare insight into Byrne’s private and public world. We observe him in his Brooklyn home; in Dublin, the city of his birth and behind the scenes on the L.A. set of the series ‘In Treatment’.
The Yellow Bittern: The Life and Times of Liam Clancy
Alan Gilsenan 2009 / Ireland (105 mins)
The Yellow Bittern is a revealing and surprising portrait of the man Bob Dylan called “ the best ballad singer I’d ever heard in my whole life. This confessional and highly cinematic film charts the remarkable rise to fame of these devil-may- care Irish singers, from their small-town beginnings in County Tipperary in Ireland to the folk hey- day of Greenwich Village in the Sixties where they absorbed black musical influences, played for JFK and out-sold the Beatles.The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem would go on to influence a host of popular artists from Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger to The Pogues, and become a powerful iconic presence on the Irish cultural map.Many myths and legends have grown up around The Clancy Brothers, but the legend of Liam Clan-cy, the youngest, is perhaps the most potent of all.,Drawing on the power of Liam’s storytelling, and unseen behind-the-scenes footage of the band at their height, as well as on Clancy’s own per-sonal archive, this film is a compelling look at an iconic and influential life lived