The announcement of the selections for Critics’ Week and Directors’ Fortnight, the premiere parallel strands at Cannes film festival, confirm significant Irish presence at the upcoming 79th edition.
Alexander Murphy’s Tin Castle, a documentary about an Irish Traveller family, secures a place in the Critics’ Week line-up. Coproduced by the busy Irish company Samson Films, the picture studies the vibrant O’Reilly clan.
“Under threat of eviction, their tenuous balance falters, yet – steadfast in their tradition – they resist,” the promotional bumf tells us. “The children laugh, the dogs bark, the trailer holds on – but for how long?” The film was produced under a recently ratified Irish-French coproduction treaty.
“It’s amazing that Tin Castle was selected,” Eamon Hughes, producer of the film, tells The Irish Times. “For me personally, it’s an absolute dream. I only graduated film school in 2020 and attended Cannes as a punter in 2022 with Samson Films. I never thought I’d have a film playing there just a few years later. It’s nuts.”
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Launched in 1962 by the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics, Critics’ Choice showcases first and second films by upcoming directors. It was here, in 2022, that Charlotte Wells’s Aftersun, for which Paul Mescal ultimately secured an Oscar nomination, premiered to breathless acclaim. Other directors to have featured in the strand include Bernardo Bertolucci, Ken Loach, Guillermo del Toro and Tony Scott.
A host of Irish talent will be descending on the Théâtre Croisette, a few hundred metres east of the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, for the always buzzy Directors’ Fortnight section. Barry Keoghan stars opposite Riley Keough in Kantemir Balagov’s Butterfly Jam, the opening film of the selection.
This counts as a coup for the Fortnight. Balagov won best director in the Un Certain Regard strand, with Beanpole, at the 2022 festival, and many had Butterfly Jam, which goes among the Circassian community in New Jersey, marked down for a place in the main competition.
Clio Barnard’s I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning, adapted by Enda Walsh from Kieran Goddard’s novel, is packed with rising Irish actors. Anthony Boyle, Daryl McCormack and Lola Petticrew star in this study of a working-class community in Birmingham. Barnard, from Yorkshire, had notable success at Directors’ Fortnight in 2013, with The Selfish Giant.
Kenneth Branagh is also likely to be at the Théâtre Croisette. The Belfast man stars opposite Hiam Abbass and Boyd Holbrook in Reed Van Dyk’s Atonement, the true story of a US marine who, following his deployment in the Iraq War of 2003, sought to make peace with survivors of the conflict.
Referred to everywhere simply as the “Quinzaine,” Directors’ Fortnight was established in the wake of the 1968 political disturbances in France as a more offbeat alternative to the official selection. Directors who have played there include Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Werner Herzog.
Rumours abound that Herzog’s colourfully titled Bucking Fastard may yet be added to the official selection. Filmed in Ireland last year, the picture features performances from Domhnall Gleeson, Simon Delaney and Hugh O’Conor.
