Ireland is well represented in the programme of the 25th Toronto International Film Festival, which opened on Thursday night with Denys Arcand's irritating and disappointingly shallow satire on the nature of fame and our media age in Stardom. However, Toronto, which now rivals Cannes as the most important film festival in the world, has assembled a vast international programme of 329 movies, 178 of them world or North American premieres.
An entire strand of the programme is devoted to the Beckett Film Project, from which 10 films will be shown, among them Krapp's Last Tape (directed by Atom Egoyan), Endgame (Conor McPherson), Happy Days (Patricia Rozema), Not I (Neil Jordan), What Where (Damien O'Donnell), Catastrophe (David Mamet) and Rough For Theatre 1 (Kieron J. Walsh).
Walsh has a dual interest in Toronto this year, with the festival hosting the world premiere tomorrow night of his movie, When Brendan Met Trudy, a romantic comedy scripted (and co-produced) by Roddy Doyle, and starring Peter McDonald and Flora Montgomery. Another world premiere for Toronto is Dudi Appleton's The Most Fertile Man in Ireland with Kris Marshall as a 24-year-old Belfast man whose life is changed when it's discovered that he has the highest sperm count in the country. John MacKenzie's When the Sky Falls, starring Joan Allen and already released in Ireland, has its North American premiere in Toronto. And Irish actor Colin Farrell features in his first major Hollywood role in Joel Schumacher's Tigerland, another world premiere for Toronto.
The Most Fertile Man in Ireland has its European premiere when it opens the Belfast Film Festival on September 22nd. The event will close with screenings of seven productions from the Beckett Film Project. The eclectic Belfast programme also includes the Cannes prize-winners, Wong Karwai's In the Mood For Love and Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark; the powerful South African documentary, Long Night's Journey Into Day; a new, digitally remastered print of the riveting Gimme Shelter; along with programmes of Hong Kong horror movies, Danish cinema, classic cartoons, new Irish shorts, and much more.
For further information: Belfast 90325913 or e-mail info@belfastfilmfestival.org
The film version of Marie Jones's critically acclaimed stage play, Stones in His Pockets, is expected to get underway in Co Kerry next summer. The play, a two-hander comedy dealing with the making of a Hollywood production in Ireland, features Conleth Hill and Sean Campion and is enjoying a very successful run in London's West End before heading to Broadway.
The film rights were acquired by the London-based Tiger Lily Films, which commissioned a screen adaptation of the play from Ben Hopkins, the writer-director of the movie Simon Magus, which features Noah Taylor, Stuart Townsend and Ian Holm, and opens in the US shortly. Speaking to Variety, from her Belfast home, Marie Jones said she was happy to pass on the adaptation baton. "The film world isn't my world," she said. "I love theatre. I like having two actors create a world around them, whereas a film is bound to create it for them."
The Northern Ireland Film Commission (NIFC), in association with the Screen Commission of Ireland, is preparing a cross-Border locations database, seeking potential film locations in Northern Ireland and in the bordering counties south of the Border. To date, over 500 locations have been surveyed and the organisers of the database would like to hear from readers in those counties who would like their home, factory or farm to be included in the database. "We're not just looking for houses, but also fields with a great view, a factory with unusual features or an island on a lake," says Andrew Reid, head of locations and information at the NIFC. "Anything that shows the diversity of the region will be considered." The address for the NIFC is 21 Ormeau Avenue, Belfast BT2 8HD, or by email, joanne@nifc.co.uk
Irish cinemas rarely ever cater for hearing-impaired audiences by screening subtitled prints of new releases. A welcome exception is UCI Tallaght, which will screen a subtitled print of the hit animated comedy, Chicken Run, this weekend.