`If you want grit, here it is: a panorama of greasy bin-liners, toxic skin rashes and sudden death in stagnant water . . ." That was one British critic's recent impression of Ratcatcher, a Glasgow-set drama which the Guardian also described as "poetic" and "the most intense vision of the everyday to emerge from Britain in an age".
Directed by Lynne Ramsay, all of 29 years, it is a highlight of this year's Galway Junior Film Fleadh, which opened last week in the Town Hall Theatre.
Ms Ramsay has been described as Scotland's answer to Ken Loach; and the Ken Loach classic, Kes, is also on the fleadh programme. Released 30 years ago, Kes is the story of a schoolboy who endeavours to escape the tedium of his working-class future in Barnsley, England, by caring for, and training, a young kestrel.
Representations of young people in British cinema over the past 50 years are one of the themes of the festival. So there is a chance to see Hue and Cry, Charles Crichton's film from 1947, which was one of Ealing's first post-war successes.
A strong educational element means that Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot is being shown, complementing the revised English Leaving Certificate syllabus. This will be accompanied by a workshop for teachers given by Tony Tracy, senior education officer with the Film Institute of Ireland.
Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet, the classic Robert Mulligan adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird and an Irish- and French-language film, Le Dernier Mot/ An Focal Scoir, about an adolescent romance on the Internet, are also on the programme.
The fleadh has initiated its first outreach film-making project this year in schools in Galway city and county. Also in Galway, but extending across the county to Athenry, Tuam, Spiddal, Ballygar and Glenamaddy, public libraries will be echoing to the creative sounds of French, German and Irish poets, writers, artists and musicians.
The European Cultural Days is a programme sponsored by the EU Socrates adult education project and involves the Bibliotheque Municipale, Lorient, France, the Stadt und Landesbibliothek, Potsdam, Germany, and the Biblioteca Civica, Parma, Italy.
There will be four days of workshops, readings and lectures from this Wednesday to Saturday. The Galway Motor Club, meanwhile, has responded to criticism by the Galway Arts Festival committee about its revised rally date. The committee had expressed concern that the new date, July 22nd-23rd, instead of February, would clash with the Macnas parade and the Connacht football final.
Mr Brian Thornton of the motor club said there was no reason to fear a clash, as the rally would be well over by the Sunday night of the Macnas parade; and the event was not being held in Galway city or Salthill.