Fleadh offers 'uplifting and inspiring' remedy

The recession is biting in the film industry as elsewhere, but next week's Galway Film Fleadh will put the emphasis on fun – though not all its films fit that description, writes DONALD CLARKE

IT’S A PAVLOVIAN response. When the summer sun finally decides to shine, Irish film-makers and film fans instinctively incline their faces towards the west (unless they’re already there, of course). For 20 years, the cracking Galway Film Fleadh has energised the warmest season with Irish premieres, celebrity guests and industry chatter. This year’s jamboree, the 21st, runs throughout next week, starting on Tuesday.

“I think the Fleadh has sought to have its identity twinned with the industry and to work as an advocate for Irish film-makers,” says Felim MacDermott, the event’s programmer.

Quite so. The fleadh, still managed by the indomitable Miriam Allen, has always struck a nice balance between satisfying celluloid- hungry civilians and providing opportunities for industry professionals to trade telephone numbers. Times are, however, not what they were. Every film festival has to acknowledge the new economic realities.

"Yes, that's right," MacDermott says. "With that in mind, the angle we're going for is films that are uplifting and inspiring. It's a quality that the opening film, Under the Same Moon, has in abundance. In a similar vein, we have asked a number of stand-up comics to select their favourite funny films."

Patricia Riggen's Under the Same Moontells the stirring story of a Mexican boy's efforts to journey to Los Angeles, where his mother works as a domestic. If that doesn't stir you from your torpor, then seek out those screenings of classics presented by Irish comics. Ardal O'Hanlon has picked Buster Keaton's The General, Maeve Higgins introduces All About Eve(more wry than funny, surely) and Des Bishop goes for the gloriously flatulent Blazing Saddles.

John Carney, whose recent film, Once, was a worldwide triumph, approves of MacDermott's approach. On Saturday night the festival will screen the long-awaited premier of Zonad. Co-directed and co-written with Carney's equally talented brother, Kieran, the film details the efforts of a peculiar stranger – a self- professed alien – to ingratiate himself with the citizens of a rural village.

"It's been a pet project for a very long time," John Carney says. "We did a pilot version of it years ago and then went off to make Bachelors Walk. Basically, we were waiting for a recession to come along before releasing it. It's ideal for a recession: silly and fun. If anybody expects it to be a worthy musical like Once, they're in for a big surprise."

The festival will screen international features such as Pedro Almodóvar's brash Broken Embraces, Jean-Francois Richet's searing Mesrine: Killer Instinctand – getting its Irish premiere at last – Courtney Hunt's Oscar- nominated Frozen River. Angelica Huston, who spent much of her childhood nearby, will be dropping by for a public chat and Christopher Hampton, writer of such hits as The Quiet Americanand Dangerous Liaisons, will be in town for a deserved tribute.

BUT THE CORE of the event remains its Irish premieres and, despite the crunch, MacDermott has managed to gather together an impressive slew of hitherto unseen domestic releases.

“We have six world premieres, which is a great honour,” he says. “Actually, the numbers are not that much different from usual. It generally tends to be around that.”

Fans of Conor McMahon's agreeably disgusting debut, Dead Meat, will be energised to hear that The Disturbed, the director's equally gory follow-up, will be playing late on the Thursday night of the fleadh. A glance at the synopsis promises a combination of appalling torture and breathless pursuit. In short, it sounds great (if less than "uplifting and inspiring").

The following day, Ken Wardrop, already famous for his imaginative short films, presents his first feature to an undoubtedly eager audience.

His and Hersis described as "a creative documentary, which chronicles a 90-year-old love story through the collective voice of 70 ladies". Anybody who has sat through Wardrop's award-winning Undressing My Motherwill expect the director to treat the material with sensitivity and nuance.

Brendan Muldowney's The Ten Stepswas another short that attracted warranted attention. The director's feature debut, Savage, an urban thriller, plays on Friday night and, if the programme is to be believed, it carries echoes of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver.

Potential Irish highlights on Saturday include Conor McDermottroe's Swansong: The Story of Occi Byrne, the tale of a man's attempt to process childhood abuse, and Brian O'Toole's Memoria, an experimental piece dealing with a couple's traumas on a honeymoon in Portugal.

A respected figure in the film world, Conor Horgan has been granted the prime spot on Saturday night for the premiere of his first full-length film, One Hundred Mornings. Starring Ciarán McMenamin and Alex Reid, the picture follows a couple as, after the total breakdown of society, hitherto suppressed tensions bubble to the surface. Horgan, director of the excellent short, The Last Time, and the fine documentary, About Beauty, will be in the town hall to soak up praise and field the audience's questions.

Events come to a close on Sunday night with a screening of Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank. Enthusiastically lauded for her debut, Red Road, Arnold, formerly a children's television presenter, picked up the Jury Prize at Cannes for this gritty examination of life on one of Essex's tougher housing estates. The director, who will be in attendance, is already one of Britain's most admired film-makers.

BEFORE THAT FINAL film kicks off, awards will, as ever, be handed out to the most successful film-makers, hands will be pumped and glasses will be raised. This year a new honorary award will be presented to Angelica Huston and busy producer Redmond Morris. The gong is, rather intriguingly, called the Galway Hooker. Don't be clever, now. The name refers to a boat.

Galway Film Fleadh runs from Wed, July 7, until Sun, July 12; galwayfilmfleadh.com