The old films and the sea

Going to the Tory Island Maritime Film Festival means leaving the mainland behind, in more ways than one, writes Catherine Foley.

Tory Island's third maritime film festival is ready to rock: the ferry at Magheroarty Pier will be running extra trips; a campsite on the island is marked out to cater for the extra visitors; fishermen are bringing home twice as many boxes of fish; bottles of organic wine have been delivered for the opening gala buffet; and the primary school and community hall have been decked out to double as screening venues for the duration of the affair.

The event, which boasts over 40 films, including rarely seen archive films from the Scottish Islands and Brittany, as well as 10 Irish-made films, and 10 documentaries from disparate islands around the world, is likely to attract plenty of interested parties, especially film-makers and producers. The festival's theme this year is Islands and Islanders.

"The highlight for me will be the opening film, Fear na nOileán," says Anne Marie Nic Ruaidhrí, joint festival director with her partner, Breton film-maker, Loïc Jourdain. Together they made Fear na nOileán (Man of the Islands), which won the Celtic Media Festival 2007 documentary award, the Spirit of the Festival Gold Torc, earlier this year. It recalls the threatened evacuation of Tory Island in the 1980s when Fr Diarmuid O Péicín spearheaded a major campaign to save the community.

Jourdain is particularly delighted that the festival has secured the rights to the world premiere of the remastered Finis terrae, (Where the Earth Ends)and Le Tempestaire (The Storm Tamer), which are rarely seen French classics by Jean Esptein. Finis terraewas filmed in 1928 off a small island west of Ouessant in Brittany. Jourdain compares it to Man of Aranby Robert Flaherty. It is set among the kelp gatherers of Bannec Island and is supposedly based on a true story about two young men who fall out. Le Tempestairewas made in 1947 with amateur actors and using techniques that hark back to the silent era of cinema. "Nobody has ever seen those two films in Ireland before," says Jourdain.

Bob Quinn will be at the festival for the screening of his 1987 feature film, Budawanny, and also his half-hour documentary about the people of Clare Island in Co Mayo, where he made Budawanny20 years later.

Four of Breandán Feiritéar's films, including Talamh Pheadair, about the life and death of Peadar Mhicí Uí Chonghaile from Inis Meáin, and Deireadh an Áil, which looks at a handful of Blasket islanders who lived in exile on the mainland in the mid 1990s, will be screened, and the film-maker himself will be in attendance to take part in discussions and workshops. Pat Collins of Harvest Films will be present for the screening of his 2004 film, Oileán Thoraí, which blends music and storytelling, art and song to explore ideas of isolation, community, identity and spatiality, as well as the decline and continuation of tradition.

The festival's Scottish element is equally exciting, with a selection of films, made in partnership with the Scottish Screen Archive, which includes the 1939 short Crofting in Skye, which was made in 1942 by Terence Egan Bishop and an 11-minute documentary called St Kilda - Britain's Loneliest Isle, which was made in 1923 and 1928. "We are trying to make it a community festival," says Nic Ruaidhrí. "It takes a while for an island to get used to having a festival. Gradually people are taking ownership of it."

FILMS FROM ISLANDSoutside of Europe include John Pilger's Stealing a Nation, which looks at the plight of people of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean. The story of Canada's smallest province, Prince Edward Island, is described in According to John Acorn.

"The smaller festivals are better, they are warmer," says Jourdain. When they are small, "you have time to talk to the people. I think that's what makes it very different. You are with the community. You are close to a community. You live with them, that close relationship makes the difference."

Linda Kavanagh, the festival's coordinator, mentions attendant attractions on the small island, such as music from Pádraig and Noel Duggan of Clannad, the voice of Lasairfhíona Ní Chonaola and the exuberance of visiting Breton musicians, not to mention entertainment with Raidió na Gaeltachta star Rónán Mac Aodha Bhuí.

The island, which is a Gaeltacht of 180 inhabitants, is nine miles off the Co Donegal coast. According to Kavanagh, the King of Tory, Patsy Dan Rodgers will greet festival goers as they arrive on to the island off the ferry. She says that "when you are leaving the mainland behind you, if you look back at the cliffs, at Errigal mountain fading in the background, you feel like you are leaving the world behind you".

"Just to be on an island is a big adventure for lots of people," says Jourdain, a native of St Malo in Brittany. His own introduction to Tory in 2000 happened when storms prevented him from leaving. Depending on the weather, he says, "you don't know when you are coming back, it can be a surprise".

The third Tory Island Maritime Film Festival runs from Thurs, July 5 to Mon, July 9. www.toryfilmfestival.com