Cork International Film Festival programming team Don O'Mahony and Si Edwards offer their choice picks from this year's epic CIFF programe, which kicks off on November 9th.
There can be an oppressive orthodoxy to Christmas time. Consider the forced jollity of the relentless barrage of seasonal songs. But for each glut of those, for every Merry Xmas Everyone, All I Want For Christmas Is You and Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, there is something that can cut through the noise and give us pause. So This Is Christmas is Ken Wardrop’s In the Bleak Midwinter. Sad, solemn and devastatingly beautiful.
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Alan Gilsenan, our leading documentarian, brings us not one, but two films this year. Having in very recent years presented us with acclaimed portraits of Dr. Nöel Browne and Paul Muldoon, Gilsenan continues his rich vein of form.
The now departed Decade of Commemoration put our more recent history under the spotlight. The United Irishmen is a timely reminder of how modern, radical and visionary were the ideals that underpinned The Society of United Irishmen and the rebellion of 1798.
Playwright Paul Mercier’s latest film touches tangentially on 1798 as it harks back to 1797. Prospect House, however, is not quite a period piece as it is set in the present day and concerns the efforts of a ragtag group protesting the demolition of an historical building to enact a story from its past.
Mercier has a lot of fun with the film-within-a-film conceit, creating a boisterous romp, while lead actor Barry Ward attacks his role of director with relish.
It’s a boxing movie detailing the circumstances that led to a scrappy outsider from Cabra to face up against the WBO Super Middleweight Champion in a North Cork village. But it’s also more than that. It captures the colour of an era where Sky Sports hype and glamour money was bringing boxing to levels of interest not seen on this side of the Atlantic since the heydays of the 70s and a new confident Ireland of Jackie’s Army and Eurovision wins was emerging.
Fergus Daly and Katherine Waugh may not be the most recognisable names on the Irish filmmaking landscape but over the last 20 years they have proved themselves to be pre-eminent crafters of the film essay. They have used both the world and mechanics of cinema as springboards to a range of deeply considered ideas and observations.
I See A Darkness is a typically cerebral and meticulously constructed meditation on a variety of topics ranging from image capture to the atomic bomb. Engrossing!
Alan Gilsenan has made films that are great and important and in this intimate, understated portrait he has created one that ranks amongst his very best. Harking back to some of the ideas raised in his 2017 film Meetings with Ivor, particularly those around therapy, Days of Trees delves into an experience of trauma.
Elegantly shot in black & white with a cinemascope style frame, its deceptively casual construction and relaxed mood slowly reveal a film of real substance.
It’s a well known fact that Irish film director Paul Duane is a big fan of genre cinema, so it’s a delight to see his first foray into horror successfully melding fear and folklore into a genuinely terrifying tale steeped in Irish folk music culture. Lankum’s Ian Lynch provides the suitably murky soundtrack, and Olwen Fouéré lends her pipes to a harrowing rendition of an ancient song which plunges the tale deep into the depths of the unknown. A nominee for our inaugural Best Irish Feature award, and not to be missed!
We’re well used to the phrase "You couldn’t make it up" to describe true stories which seem implausible, but I doubt anyone this side of David Lynch would be able to concoct a tale as bizarre as The Gullspâng Miracle. What starts as a "divine sign" for two devout Norwegian sisters soon veers into the strange when they meet the doppelgänger of their deceased elder sibling. But then things start to get really weird! This documentary is definitely a candidate for the film which makes you say "Wait, what?" the most this year.
Cinema’s 'King of Trash’ John Waters was recently honoured with his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, so what better way to celebrate this than by watching his hilariously wicked classic Female Trouble, part of CIFF’s Guilty Pleasures strand? Featuring Divine at her outrageous best, together with a host of Waters regulars such as Mink Stole, David Lowery and Edith Massey as the unforgettable Aunt Ida, Female Trouble boast some of the finest, most quotable lines ever committed to low-budget celluloid, and remains a deliciously shocking delight.
The Cork International Film Festival runs from November 9th - 23rd - find out more here.
