23rd Fleadh makes holy show of Stella line-up

REELNEWS:The programme for the 23rd Galway Film Fleadh was unveiled this week.

As ever, the increasingly prestigious event, which runs from July 5th until July 10th, features a tasty line-up of Irish features and enticing international releases.

Martin Sheen will be on hand to launch Stella Days, Thaddeus O'Sullivan's film about a priest's attempts to set up a cinema in rural Ireland during the 1950s.

Other home players include Lelia Doolan's Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey, a study of Bernadette Devlin McAliskey; Neil Dowling's debut Sarang Hey!,a globe-spanning romance; and Gerard Hurley's The Pier, the story of a returning emigrant. Rebecca Daly's The Other Side of Sleep, which recently played at the Directors' Fortnight in Cannes, also gets its Irish premiere at the Galway do.

The opening film is to be Darragh Byrne's debut feature Parked, featuring another gritty turn from the great Colm Meaney.

Since its inception in 1989 as part of the Galway Arts Festival, the Fleadh has steadily developed into the prime spot for unveiling domestic product. Previous guests have included the likes of Paul Schrader, Peter O’Toole, Richard Attenborough and Michael Moore.

The Fleadh also makes sure to include a healthy dose of pictures from around the world. This year, Susanne Bier's In a Better World, winner of the Oscar for best foreign language picture, will be unspooled to an expectant audience. The mainstream is catered for with a gala premiere of Cars 2, the latest animation from the mighty Pixar Studios. galwayfilmfleadh.com