John Carney’s ‘Sing Street’ kicks off Dublin film festival

The Audi Dublin International Film Festival (Adiff) got under way on Thursday night with a "gala" screening of John Carney's Sing Street in the Savoy cinema, marking a welcome return for the festival's traditional February slot. The festival, previously sponsored by Jameson and known as Jdiff, shifted to March last year, when it got mixed up in St Patrick's Day hoopla and the business end of the Six Nations tournament.

And after a thorough hunt for a new commercial supporter, it found joy in the spend-happy car industry, with Audi coming on board as the title sponsor, while more recently Peroni Nastro Azzurro (to give the beer its full title) has been announced as the "official beverage sponsor". In its current cinema advertising campaign, Peroni pays homage to Federico Fellini's 1960 masterpiece La Dolce Vita, while in 2014 the brewer also hosted a series of "immersive" Italian film screenings in Dublin under the title Cinema Peroni.

The festival runs until "Oscars" night of February 28th, when it closes with Paddy Breathnach's Viva.

Meanwhile, as an “area of opportunity” for 2016, market specialists Onside recently ranked sponsorship of the arts on the same level as this year’s “hot button” – the rather different entertainment world of Mixed Martial Arts.