Irish Film Festa 2016 Short Films Competition

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Fifteen short films have been selected for the Irish Film Festa 2016 competition. Ten shorts will compete in the live action category and five shorts will compete in the animation one.

This year we received about eighty submissions (animation, live action, fiction, documentary) and we would like to thank all the Irish filmmakers for their participation.

The 9th edition of Irish Film Festa will take place from April 7th to 10th at the Casa del Cinema in Rome.

 

Here’s the list of the selected short films:

 

LIVE ACTION

1. BOOGALOO & GRAHAM (2014) by Michael Lennox

Jamesy and Malachy are over the moon when their soft-hearted dad presents them with two baby chicks to care for. Raising their tiny charges, declaring themselves vegetarian and dreaming of running a chicken farm, the two boys are in for a shock when their parents announce that big changes are coming to the family.

2. GIRONA (2015) by Paul McGuigan

On a long stormy night an encounter with a dark mysterious woman in a strange hotel causes a lonely man to confront his past.

3. HOW WAS YOUR DAY (2015) by Damien O’Donnell

A woman is excited about the approaching birth of her first child.

4. LOVE IS A STING (2015) by Vincent Gallagher

Struggling children’s book writer Harold Finch gains an unexpected house guest- a 20 year

old, hyper-intelligent mosquito named Anabel.

5. LYING DOWN (2015) by Susan Collins and Brian O’Brien

Will needs to move on with his life; unfortunately, Will can’t move in any direction at all. Alannah can’t see what his problem is. Can she help him if she doesn’t understand him? Or will Will stay stuck in the same place, forever?

6. INSULIN (2015) by Andy Tohill and Ryan Tohill

Holed up in a run down pharmacy, a man helps his diabetic wife to survive on dwindling supplies of insulin, trading medicine for food from the outside world. When a stranger comes looking for insulin, and refuses to be turned away, both husband and wife must face the reality of her rapidly shortening life.

7. JOSEPH’S REEL (2015) by Michael Lavers

An elderly man, upon dying, is given the opportunity to relive one day of his life.

8. MY BONNIE (2015) by Hannah Quinn

Two people at sea, trapped between a rock and a hard place, must face the distance between them.

9. WAIT (2015) by Audrey O’ Reilly

When an important pigeon race and a rare visit home by his son Martin coincide, Charlie waits anxiously for a safe journey home.

10. WATERLILIES (2014) by Tanya Doyle

In their sixties seven women have decided to take themselves out of their comfort zone and learn to swim.

 

ANIMATION

1. CITY OF ROSES (2015) by Andrew Kavanagh

In 1950, Paddy Fitzpatrick emigrated to the USA from Ireland. Told through his letters home, the story details his new life, finding a job at Meier & Frank, meeting his future wife, Rose and being drafted for army.

2. AN ODE TO LOVE (2014) by Matthew Darragh

A lonely man on a desert island explores the highs and lows of romantic love when a mysterious companion is washed ashore. Nothing will ever be the same. Or will it?

3. THE TEACUP (2015) by Elif Boyacioglu

Once there was a man who was afraid to go out…

4. UNHINGED (2015) by Tom Caulfield

The squeaky hinge gets the oil. But when the squeak escapes the oil its sure to get you!

5. VIOLET (2015) by Maurice Joyce

Violet is a a young girl who despises her reflection. On the night of the school ball, tired of the abuse, Violet’s reflection decides she’s not going to take it anymore.

Irish Film Festa 2016 celebrates the Centenary of the Easter Rising

Seachtar na Cásca
Seachtar na Cásca

The 9th edition of IRISH FILM FESTA will take place from 7 to 10 April, 2016, at the Casa del Cinema in Rome: dedicated to screening the best of contemporary Irish cinema, the festival will showcase Irish feature films, documentaries and short films, and provide conferences and public interviews with special guests from the Irish film sector.

Fifteen short films have been selected for the competition, ten in the live action category and five in the animation one.

IRISH FILM FESTA 2016 will also feature a special programme dedicated  to the Centenary of the Easter Rising, which in 1916 started the process that led to the Irish independence from the United Kingdom and the constitution of the Republic of Ireland.

This Ireland 1916-2016 programme includes a selection of episodes from 1916 Seachtar na Cásca (The Easter Seven), a seven part historical documentary series narrated by Brendan Gleeson and dedicated to the lives of the seven men who were the signatories of the 1916 Easter Proclamation: Thomas J. Clarke, Sean Mac Diarmada, James Connolly, Patrick H. Pearse, Éamonn Ceannt, Thomas MacDonagh, and Joseph Plunkett. The series is produced by Abú Media Films for TG4 in association with the BAI and is directed by Dathaí Keane; the script was written by Aindrias Ó Cathasaigh.

IRISH FILM FESTA will also screen the nine short films produced by the Irish Film Board under the After ’16 one-off scheme as part of the Centenary commemorations. The After ’16 shorts are: A Father’s Letter by Joe Dolan, A Terrible Hollabaloo by Ben O’Connor, Baring Arms by Colm Quinn, Goodbye, Darling by Elena Doyle, Granite and Chalk by Patrick Hodgins, Mr. Yeats and the Beastly Coins by Laura McNicholas and Ann Marie Hourihane, My Life for Ireland by Kieron J. Walsh, The Cherishing by Dave Tynan, e The Party by Andrea Harkin.

This year’s Irish classic is Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins, which will be screened in Rome 20 years after it won the Golden Lion Award at the 1996 Venice Film Festival where its star Liam Neeson was voted best actor. The film, wich took Jordan more than a decade of work to write the script, tells the last six years of Michael Collins’ life, from the Rising of 1916 to the ambush that killed him in 1922.

The full programme of IRISH FILM FESTA 2016 will be announced in the next weeks.