Guest of Honor at IrishFilmFesta 2012 is Fionnula Flanagan, Irish performer of uncountable successful films. Among her most well-known roles is the one of Miss Bertha Millis, the housekeeper of The Others‘ haunted mansion.
The actress will take the floor at the Festival after the Irish Classic screening of Some Mother’s Son (1996), debut feature of the director Terry George, to whom IrishFilmFesta is paying homage this year with the screening of The Shore, Academy Award 2012 winner for Best Short.
Some Mother’s Son, awarded at the European Film Awards and San Sebastian Film Festival, is set during the 1981 Hunger Strike in the Long Kesh prison. Fionnula Flanagan plays the mother of one of the young Republican prisoners inspired by Bobby Sands.
This year, Fionnula has received the IFTA Lifetime Achievement Award, prestigious recognition assigned by the Irish Film & Television Academy. Her relentless activity in both Cinema and Television, internationally and in her homeland, is highlighted among the award motivations.
Today, she will be interviewed in front of the festival audience and the event will be managed by Susanna Pellis (Head of Irish Film Festa) and Aine O’Healy (Director, Humanities Program – Professor, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures – Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles).
This is a rare occasion to meet Mrs Flanagan in Rome and it’s not to be missed.