The programme for the 10th anniversary edition of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival was unveiled in the capital today.
Stellan Skarsgård, the esteemed Swedish actor, joined celebrities at the newly reopened Light House Cinema to launch the festival programme.
Skarsgård, whose credits include Breaking the Waves and the recent The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, had earlier received a Volta Award, the festival's career achievement honour, from Irish producer Arthur Lappin.
The actor was joined at today's launch by Amy Huberman, who is in the Irish film Stella Days and voices some of the animation in Death of a Superhero, both of which will be screened at the festival.
Michael Dwyer, late film correspondent at The Irish Times, reconstituted the event in 2003 as a replacement for the Dublin Film Festival, which had collapsed the previous year.
Organised over three short months, the first event ran for a week and offered punters 66 screenings. The 2012 edition, which begins on February 16th, runs for 10 days and will feature 147 screenings.
“We have been lucky in that we have retained Jameson as a title sponsor,” said festival director Gráinne Humphreys. “The Arts Council has always been supportive and so has the Irish Film Board. Costs are changing. But we have tried hard to keep the ticket price constant and not pass those increases on to audiences.”
The 10th anniversary event will welcome a particularly starry array of film professionals. Such actors as Martin Sheen, Glenn Close, Michael Madsen and Mark Wahlberg are all expected to attend. Top billing must, however, go to the venerable Al Pacino, who will be presenting Wilde Salomé, his eccentric documentary about one of Oscar Wilde's more notorious plays.
Among the films receiving screenings are Alfred Nobbs, starring Glenn Close as a cross-dressing 19th century Irishwoman; Alexander Sokurov's Faust, winner at the recent Venice Film Festival; and Thaddeus O'Sullivan's rural Irish drama Stella Days.
Special events include a performance of Danny Elfman’s music at the National Concert Hall, a screenwriting masterclass with Kenneth Lonergan and a presentation of prizes by the Dublin Film Critics Circle.
The festival will open with a gala presentation of Thom Fitzgerald's Cloudburst - starring Brenda Fricker, one of Ireland's best-loved actors - and will close with Ian Fitzgibbon's acclaimed drama Death of a Superhero.