Four debut feature films by Irish directors are among the movies already confirmed for the 12th Galway Film Fleadh, which will run from July 11th to 16th. Set to receive its world premiere on the closing night is Kevin Liddy's Country, featuring Gary Lydon, Lisa Harrow, Des Cave, Pat Laffan and young newcomer Dean Pritchard.
An Irish premiere for Galway is the film of Brendan Behan's The Borstal Boy, the first feature from the theatre director and author, Peter Sheridan whose short film, The Breakfast, has won many awards on the festival circuit. The Borstal Boy features Shawn Hatosy, Danny Dyer, Michael York and Eva Birthistle.
Showcased at the Berlin Film Festival in February and getting its first Irish screening in Galway, Saltwater is another first feature from an Irish playwright - Conor McPherson, who based the film on his stage play, This Lime Tree Bower. It features Peter McDonald, Brian Cox, Conor Mullen, Lawrence Kinlan and Brendan Gleeson. Already seen at the Cork Film Festival, Fintan Connolly's Flick features David Murray as a young Dubliner whose life is changed when he meets a German visitor played by Isabelle Menke. The cast also includes David Wilmot, Mannix Flynn, Catherine Punch and Alan Devlin.
Over 60 feature films from around the world will be screened over the six days of the fleadh. A strand of new French cinema will include the Claire Denis movie, Beau Travail, set among a French Foreign Legion unit, and Sam Karman's Kennedy et Moi.
The diverse international programme includes the European premiere of the well-regarded US indie, Goat on Fire and Smiling Fish, along with Abbas Kiarostami's The Wind Will Carry Us, Nora Hoppe's The Crossing, and the Nepalese film, Himalaya (aka Caravan), which was nominated for the Oscar for best foreign-language film this year. The Stephen Frears film of Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, starring John Cusack as the music-obsessed thirtysomething protagonist, will also be screened.
The strong programme of international documentaries features Ron Mann's Canadian Grass, a history of recreational marijuana use in the late 20th century, and the powerful Long Night's Jour- ney Into Day, which examines the stories of human suffering behind the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa.
Fresh from its premiere at Cannes, Barbara Kopple's documentary A Conversation with Gregory Peck features footage from the 84-year-old actor's touring one-man show and clips from key films in his career, along with footage of Peck in Paris for dinner with Jacques Chirac, with the Clintons at the White House, and with Martin Scorsese at UCD Film School in Dublin.
Irish documentaries on the programme will include Se Merry Doyle's Alive Alive O, Shimmy Marcus's Aidan Walsh - Master of the Universe, Steve Woods's Estella, and the premiere of Peter Canning's Patrick Carey - Film-Maker, which celebrates the life and work of the Dublin-born cameraman and director who died in 1993.
Two of Carey's films, Country and Waves, will be shown as part of the fleadh's programme on the theme of nature, which also will include the Greek film Earth and Water, the Iranian The Colour of Paradise and Terrence Malick's superb 1978 film, Days of Heaven.
In addition, the EU-backed Fleadh Fair will give Irish and European film-makers a rare opportunity to meet with international producers, sales agents and distributors.
For further information contact the fleadh on (091) 751655 or at gafleadh@iol.ie.
The graduate show for students taking the National Diploma in Film and Television - a joint venture between Galway Mayo Institute of Technology and Galway Film Centre - will be held in the Town Hall Theatre in Galway on Sunday, June 18th, at 8 p.m. This is the first graduate class of the three-year diploma course and it will include four short documentaries and three short fiction films.
