Putting the focus on Irish talent is vital to success of Film Fleadh
Date Published: {J}
“I just think we’re the bee’s knees,” laughs the Managing Director of Galway Film Fleadh Miriam Allen.
She’s joking, but she has a point. In a year when the Fleadh had its Arts Council grant slashed by almost a quarter the Fleadh organisers have put together a fine programme, which has put a serious focus on home-grown movies. That’s in addition to a comprehensive programme of world cinema and masterclasses in acting, writing and directing from some of the top names in the business.
“I’m very happy with the Fleadh programme. We’ve been celebrating Irish talent every year and there are fantastic Irish films this year,” says Miriam.
The Fleadh will screen 18 new Irish features, which have been made in the last couple of years. Miriam and the Fleadh’s Programmer Felim McDermott have seen all of them and she is confident of their very high standard.
They include Come on Eileen which will be screened on Thursday night, July 8 and Miriam is warm in her praise for that film’s main actress, Jackie Howe.
“Her performance is incredible. She plays a recovering alcoholic who goes back on the drink and it’s a no-holds-barred performance. It’s brilliant. When you see somebody doing something that even they know they shouldn’t be doing and you see the lives around her where people are on tenterhooks . . . her performance is absolutely stunning.”
Where the Sea Used to Be on Friday, July 9 is a quiet comedy about two brothers who are forced to spend a Christmas together, and the ghosts that haunt them and the issues they resolve.
That move was funded outside the traditional funding bodies of the Film Board, Arts Council or RTÉ, explains Miriam. So the crew and actors did it over a couple of years as they had the money.Sensation, meanwhile, on Saturday, July 10 features a “tremendous performance by Domhnall Gleeson”.
“He’s playing a young guy whose father has just died and who is a virgin. He goes into partnership with this woman to open a brothel in the middle of nowhere. And like any young buck who gets a taste for it, they need to be at it all the time!”
For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.