Month: October 2013

Premio Letterature dal Fronte, “H3″ by Les Blair screened in Cassino

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Susanna Pellis (Irish Film Festa director), Laurence McKeown and Silvia Calamati
Susanna Pellis (direttore Irish Film Festa), Laurence McKeown e Silvia Calamati

Il diario di Bobby Sands. Storia di un ragazzo irlandese (Bobby Sand’s Diary. The Story of an Irish Boy) written by Silvia Calamati, Laurence McKeown and Denis O’Hearn, published by Castelvecchi, has been awarded with the Premio internazionale Città di Cassino 2013 assigned by Letterature dal fronte Association.

The award is held to «gather, examine, value and reward one or more authors telling stories, facts and testimonies from war zones».

The book by Calamati, McKeown and Denis O’Hearn is about Bobby Sands, the Irish republican prisoner who died on hunger strike in 1981, at the age of 27, in Long Kesh prison.

In occasion of the award ceremony, H3 by Les Blair was screened in Cassino with the collaboration of Irish Film Festa, which also provided the subtitles for it. Laurence McKeown himself, one of the Long Kesh hunger strikers, worked on the script of H3.

Bobby Sands’ life was recently brought on screen also by Steve McQueen’s Hunger (2008), in which Sands was played by Michael Fassbender.

Info letteraturedalfrontecassino.it

Paul Duane’s “Barbaric Genius” documentary now available worldwide on DVD and VoD

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barbaric-genius

Barbaric Genius is a documentary film directed by Paul Duane (The Making of Rocky Road to Dublin, Natan: The Untold Story of French Cinema’s Forgotten Genius) about the popular London-Irish author and chess champion John Healy.

The doc was critically acclaimed, got a Grierson Awards nomination and now, thanks to Wildcard Distribution and for the first time for an Irish feature, it is also available to buy on DVD and VoD worldwide through the official website.

Synopsis:

The son of Irish immigrants, John Healy lived rough on the violent streets of London for fifteen years drinking heavily and turning to crime to survive. On one stint in prison he was taught the basics of chess by his cellmate. This became his new addiction as alcohol was left behind. He became a rated player who had an incredible ability of taking on and defeating multiple opponents at the same time.

He wrote a memoir of his life which became the best selling book The Grass Arena and for a time he became the darling of the British media. Then he disappeared with stories emerging that he’d made threats of violence towards his publishers, that he was mentally ill and a psychopath.

Barbaric Genius meets John as he’s about to make a comeback to the literary scene after nearly 20 years with the likes of Irvine Welsh and Daniel Day-Lewis as his cheerleaders. Having been savaged once by the media and the literary world, how will he deal with success second time round and the inevitable digging-up of his violent past that comes with it?

The documentary was produced by Paul Duane and Mary Carson for Screenworks, with funding by Irish Film Board and RTÉ.

Irish cinema in Busan, Pordenone and New York

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Garage • Rogues, Rebels and Romantics: A Season of Irish Cinema is the name of the programme dedicated to Irish cinema by the 18th Busan International Film Festival (3-12 October).

Irish directors John Butler, Lance Daly, Neil Jordan, Brendan Muldowney and Jim Sheridan attended the festival and took part, as reported by Variety, in a panel discussion about the current state of Irish film industry and its possibilities of growth in the Korean, Asian and international market.

The Busan retrospective line up, provided by the Irish Film Institute and the Irish Film Board, is composed by eleven titles: Garage by Lenny Abrahamson (2007), Love Eternal by Brendan Muldowney (2013), Life’s a Breeze by Lance Daly (2013), The Stag by John Butler (2013), Leo the Last by John Boorman (1970), The Crying Game by Neil Jordan (1992), In the Name of the Father by Jim Sheridan (1993), Michael Collins by Neil Jordan (1996), The General by John Boorman (1998), In America by Jim Sheridan (2002) e Once by John Carney (2006).

Source: Irish Film Institute

 

• The Pordenone Silent Film Festival (Giornate del Cinema Muto di Pordenone, 5 – 12 October) is also going to screen two Irish films: the short The Girl with the Mechanical Maiden directed by Andrew Legge (special mention at Irish Film Festa 2012) and Natan: The Untold Story of French Cinema’s Forgotten Genius, a documentary by David Cairns and Paul Duane which unveils the forgotten story of French-Romanian producer and director Bernard Natan.

Source: Cineteca del Friuli

 

• Irish Film New York (4 – 6 October) just took place at the Cantor Film Center presenting a selection of recent films: Run & Jump by Steph Green (2013), Made in Belfast by Paul Kennedy (2013), Silence by Pat Collins (2012), King of Travellers by Mark O’Connor (2012), When Ali Came to Ireland by Ross Whitaker (2012) and The Hardy Bucks Movie by Mike Cockayne (2013). Film critic Ronan Doyle wrote an interesting piece about IFNY and the growing importance of contemporary Irish cinema for Indiewire.

Source: Irish Film NY