16a edizione | 2025 | Casa del Cinema, Roma
The “Saint Patrick Special” will open officially at 3.30 pm. The public will be addressed by the Irish Ambassador to Italy, H.E. Patrick Hennesy and the Irish Minister for Tourism and Sport, Michael Ring, T.D.
This one-day programme, will feature in this order: a marathon of animation shorts, the full-length The Secret of Kells and conclude with What Richard Did by Lenny Abrahamson.
To conclude its special one-day event dedicated to animation, the IrishFilmFesta presents The Secret of Kells (Tom Moore, Nora Twomey, 2009), a full-length animation film nominated for an Oscar in 2010.
Loved by audiences of all ages, this fascinating film draws its inspiration from the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript housed at Trinity College, Dublin. Among the voices lent to the animated characters we find that of the celebrated Irish actor Brendan Gleeson.
After the screening, the director Nora Twomey will hold a brief master class and provide some examples of the work done for The Secret of Kells and for the much-awaited, new animated film Song of the Sea which she is at present creating with the same artists.
(Screening and Masterclass from 6.30pm.)
On Sunday 17th March, during the Saint Patrick Special, The Boy in the Bubble, which won last winter’s IRISHFILMFESTA award for shorts, will be screened in 3D. On that occasion, the director Kealan O’Rourke will receive the IRISHFILMFESTA awarded him last winter.
A clear tribute to Tim Burton, The Boy in the Bubble tells the story of a boy who, after his first taste of disappointed love, places himself under a magical spell so as not to suffer again. The narrating voice is that of Alan Rickman.
Screening at 6.30 pm.
The IrishFilmFesta opens its special one day Saint Patrick’s edition at Rome’s Casa del Cinema with a selection of the best all-time Irish animation shorts (Animated Ireland, at 3.30 pm).
The programme includes productions dating from between 1909 and the present, chosen by Steve Woods, who will introduce the event with a short conference on Irish cinema animation.
Director, scriptwriter and producer, Steve Woods is one of the founders of the Galway Festival and creator of the James Horgan prize awarded annually to Irish animation artists. Besides teaching at the National Film School – IADT, in Dun Laoghaire, Woods runs a production house, Cel’ Division, located in Dublin.
The Saint Patrick’s Day one-day IRISHFILMFESTA programme will conclude with What Richard Did, Lenny Abrahamson’s latest film.
The film, which has just received five IFTA awards in Ireland – best film, best director, best leading actor , best screen-play and best editing – is the third feature film made by Abrahamson, undoubtedly one of the New Irish Cinema‘s foremost film-making talents.
Based on the novel Bad Day in Blackrock by Kevin Power, What Richard Did explores the drama of a well-to-do upper-middle-class Dublin youth whose perfect life is ruined by an unexpected act of violence. In the title role, the young Jack Reynor whose performance has already won him a prominent place in the international cinema firmament, and an important new part in Transformers 4 by Michael Bay.
(picture: Jack Reynor with his IFTA)
Sunday 17th March: an entire St. Patrick’s Day will be dedicated to the vibrant Irish animation industry with this unique initiative.
Irish Film Festa aims to present, in Italy, a comprehensive overview of Irish animation, currently a prominent and thriving area of the Irish film industry. This celebrative day sees a conference on the history of Irish animation and the screening of a wide selection of short films and the feature The Secret of Kells.
United Kingdom, Ireland, 2012
Today, at 18.00, at the House of Cinema in Rome. The movie will be introduced by Stuart Graham.
Director: James Marsh; screenplay: Tom Bradby; cinematography: Rob Hardy; editing: Jinx Godfrey; production design: Jon Henson; costumes: Lorna Marie Mugan; music: Dickon Hinchliffe; casting: Nina Gold; producers: Chris Coen, Andrew Lowe, Ed Guiney; production companies: Unanimous Entertainment, Element Pictures, Wild Bunch Productions; Italian distribution: Moviemax; Irish location: Dublin; running time: 100’
Cast: Clive Owen, Andrea Riseborough, Domhnall Gleeson, Brid Brennan, Aidan Gillen, Gillian Anderson, Martin McCann, David Wilmot, Michael McElhatton, Stuart Graham
Synopsis
Collette McVeigh is a Republican living in Belfast with her mother and hardliner IRA brothers. When she is arrested for her part in an aborted IRA bomb plot in London, an MI5 officer (Mac) offers her a choice: lose everything and go to prison for 25 years or return to Belfast to spy on her own family.
With her son’s life in her hands, Collette chooses to place her trust in Mac and return home, but when her brothers’ secret operation is ambushed, suspicions of an informant are raised and Collette finds both herself and her family in grave danger.
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.
The actor Stuart Graham will be present at the Casa del Cinema for the screening of two films he has a role in: Milo, Saturday December 8, at 15.30, and Shadow Dancer, Sunday December 9 at 18.00. Both screenings to be held at Deluxe screening room.
Milo is a 10 year old boy, seriously ill with a genetic disorder which forces him to live under the strict supervision of his father. A missed kidnapping, an unusual friendship and a harsh confrontation will drive Milo and his parents to embrace their beautifully imperfect lives.
The film is in the Official Selection of Giffoni Film Festival 2013.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Stuart Graham.
Shadow Dancer, which had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival 2012 and was screened Out of Competition in the 62nd Berlinale IFF, is set in Belfast in 1990 and tells the story of Colette McVeigh (Andrea Riseborough), facing a painful choice: to serve a 25 year prison sentence away from her son, or become an undercover informant of the British Government, betraying her own family and their IRA militant ideals.
The film has just received its Italian premiere at the Torino Film Festival 2012.
The actor Stuart Graham will introduce the screening.
Friday, December 7th, 5.30pm, Actor, Director and Screenwriter Terry McMahon will be in Rome for a Masterclass on Acting within IrishFilmFesta.
After the screening of My Brothers, scheduled Friday, December 7th at 5.30pm, the Actor, Director and Screenwriter Terry McMahon (Acting Teacher at IADT – Institute of Art Design & Technology, DIT – Dublin Institute of Technology, John Huston School and Dublin Trinity College), will lecture on his working and teaching method, which “[mettiamo il suo originale in Inglese]”
McMahon’s explanation will draw on a scene he acts in taken from My Brothers.
THIS MASTERCLASS IS OPEN TO EVERYONE: ACTORS, FILM MAKERS AND CINEMA LOVERS
5.30pm: screening of My Brothers (Paul Fraser, 2010), immediately following at 7:00pm Masterclass
Info and booking: info@irishfilmfesta.org
Friday, December 7, 2012 at 19.00. Special screening of The Begrudgers, directed by Philip Doherty, four episodes web series winner of RTÉ 2012 “Storyland”. The Begrudgers, web tv series shot in Cavan, a small Irish Republic town close to the Northern Ireland border, winner of RTÉ 2012 “Storyland”, has four half-hour episodes, all of which are screened here as a single special screening.
The Begrudgers (Shane Carroll and Ray Fitzsimons) are Nobby and Snout, two young men that let the days go by perched on their pub stools, grumbling with groundless envy and grudge, whose life is all of a sudden shaken by the enthusiastic and excited arrival of Gemma, an American girl, and George, a British boy.
Storyland, now in its fourth edition, is the contest created by RTÉ Drama with the purpose of leading the audience to the discovery of new talented Irish film makers.
At the beginning of the contest, the first episodes of 8 very dissimilar web series are shown. After each show, only those series that gathered the highest amount of preferences from the audience are then commissioned the following episode. The contest lasted four months, until The Begrudgers won.
The screening – in original version with Italian subtitles – will be introduced by Andrea Malagamba’s lecture on TV seriality and on the recent web series phenomenon. Andrea Malagamba is a literary critic and Literature Professor at the Jewish School in Rome, and collaborates with the Human Sciences Faculty of Rome University “La Sapienza” as a contract professor. He is editor of the book “Eroi del quotidiano – Figure della serialità televisiva” (Bevivino ed., 2010).
Thursday December 6th at 5.30pm, in the Kodak screening room, there will be a special screening of the documentary Life as an Interface, original version without subtitles. The Director Laurence McKeown will be at the screening. Introduction by the journalist Silvia Calamati.
Life as an Interface is a documentary feature on the Skegoneill Glandore Common Purpose Project, devoted to creating social and economic common ground for the residents of two bordering zones of North Belfast, respectively with a unionist and a nationalist majority. Even though there is no physical detachment between the two communities, neglect and degradation mark these urban settlements.
The SGCP Project is kept alive by volunteers and its aim is the enhancement of this area through creative arts, fostering mutual awareness and closer contact among the residents.
The SGCP president is the North-American Callie Persic: now living in the area herself, she has been working for years with Belfast communities. Vice President is a former loyalist prisoner, and one of the staff members, a Long Kesh former prisoner as well, belongs to the nationalist community.
Laurence McKeown is a North Irish writer, playwright and screenwriter. A former Republican prisoner with Bobby Sands, Laurence took part in the famous 1981 hunger strike at Long Kesh, refusing food for 70 days. Life as an interface is his first work as a director.
Silvia Calamati, writer, journalist and Rainews24 contributor, is the author of the books “Il diario di Bobby Sands” (with McKeown and Denis O’Hearn) and “Qui Belfast. Storia contemporanea della guerra in Irlanda del Nord” (Red Star Press, 2012).