ACTING IN FILM – Terry McMahon Masterclass

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

The Begrudgers

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).

LIFE AS AN INTERFACE – Special Screening

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).

KEYS TO THE CITY – Special Screening

 

Sunday December 9th at 5.30pm, Volonté screening room, special screening of Keys to the City, original version without subtitles. The actress Una Kavanagh will be at the screening.

Set in full recession Dublin, the film confronts the subject of desperation, touching the stories of three different groups of people, cut to shreds by the current economic situation, and their forlorn choices in trying to find redemption.

Keys to the City, shot with a Red camera, a small crew of 16 and a reduced budget, assumes an innovative approach to tell its tale – 3 writers, 3 directors, 3 intertwining stories, 3 weeks in shooting.

This is the first feature produced under the auspices of the MSc Digital Feature Film Production, film course born out of the collaboration between Dublin Filmbase and the Staffordshire University in the UK.

The students worked together with renown Irish directors Conor Horgan (One Hundred Mornings), Conor McDermottroe (SwanSong) and James Fair (The Ballad of Des&Mo) for the drafting of the story, and producer John Wallace (Dollhouse, Rewind) helped out with production issues.

The MSc course has been developed last year to answer the emerging need to train young film makers to the challenge of producing features through new digital formats.


STEPHEN REA very special guest at IFF 2011

The famous actor Stephen Rea is the very special guest of this year’s IrishFilmFesta. Rea will be in Rome to hold a masterclass, on Saturday, December 3, after the screening of The Butcher Boy. IRISHFILMFESTA will present also the episode The Lost Sons, from the tv series Single Handed 4, for which Rea has won the IFTA for Best Supporting Actor. To complete the tribute to the actor, the short Fluent dysphasia (2004).

 

The Ballad of Des & Mo – James Fair’s cinema lesson

 

The Ballad od Des & Mo,  written and directed by James Fair, will be screened on Friday 2nd  December at 6.00 pm during the  2011  IrishFilmFesta. This film tells the story of an Irish couple’s adventurous second honey moonin Australia.  It  was shot and edited in only 72 hours and was screened during the 59th edition of the Melbourne Festival.

James Fair- director and Film Technology lecturer at the Staffordshire University  – will explain to the audience the experimental production techniques  that allowed him to shoot his film in such a short time span.  He is no stranger to this type of techniques, which he applied for his previous movie Watching & Waiting, a film shot over 72 hours for the 2008 Galway Film Fleadh festival.

 

10 Irish shorts in competition

The festival will feature a competitive section fully dedicated to short films this year as well. Ten short films in various genres and of various length will take part in the competition.

The jury assessing the short films will include film critics Boris Sollazzo and Daniela Catelli, script analyst Matteo D’Arienzo and Leonardo Paulillo, a lawyer specialized in IP and copyrights.

During the event a short will be screened before every film,  following last year’s successful display. The winner will be announced on the Festival’s closing evening. The director of the best short film will be awarded with a week end in Rome offered by the hotel  Romanico Palace, sponsor  of  IRISHFILMFESTA.

The audience will also be able to choose their favourite short after the screening of all competing shorts, which will take place on Friday 2nd of December at 5.30 p.m.

 

IrishFilmFesta opens with The Guard

The IRISHFILMFESTA opening night will kick off with The Guard, winner of the last Galway Film Fleadh and most successful independent Irish film of all time in terms of box-office receipts.

Together with the lead actor Brendan Gleeson and the Afro-American actor Don Cheadle some of the most famous faces of Irish cinema (Fionnula Flanagan, Liam Cunningham, David Wilmot, Gary Lydon, Pat Shortt, Lawrence Kinlan, Darren Healy) to create a ‘gangster-western’ full of black Irish humour and twists.