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Screenwriter

Donald Clarke

Whingeing about cinema and real life since 2009

Film Festivals

The Corona Cork Film Festival honours Left and others…

Hats off to the good people at the Corona Cork Film Festival which ended another successful edition on Sunday with the annual awards for short films. The event always hosts an array of features and special events. But it remains …

Ben Affleck escapes and other notes from the LFF

Ben Affleck’s Argo has just screened at the BFI London Film Festival to much deserved acclaim. Speaking with the benefit of hindsight, we can now claim that we saw Ben’s renaissance coming for years. Following the success of Good Will …

To the London Film Festival

It’s that time of the year. The BFI London Film Festival is looming and, as ever, it features the heaviest concentration of cinematic talent to gather anywhere in Britain or Ireland over the year. It’s an odd event. Almost everything …

The Master dominates our festival round up.

Christmas comes earlier and earlier every year. There’s no way around it. Oscar season kicks off with the twin whammy of the Venice and Toronto film festivals. Let’s pretend that’s not the case and just talk about the movies (almost …

The Galway Film Fleadh Awards are in

It was another impressive year at the Fleadh. I will hold fire before going into too much detail about the pictures because a full report is to appear in The Irish Times on Tuesday. But I was impressed by Ciaran …

DFCC and surprise film at JDIFF

We had an impressively suave line-up of talent at the Dublin Film Critics Circle Awards. Marjane Satrapi, Marian Finucane and Gareth Evans all turned up to accept awards at the perennially diverting soiree in the Irish Film Institute. This year’s …

Nuala and DFCC at JDIFF

A particularly busy festival grinds towards its close this weekend. We enjoyed the rush and the run. There were plenty of good films and the guests were starrier than ever. I had a very nice night this evening. I got …

Still alive at JDIFF

I suppose, in addressing the highlights of my week, I can hardly avoid mentioning that I had a nice chat with Al Pacino yesterday. You can read the interview on Saturday, so I won’t bothering going into too much detail …