On The Town:The Button Factory in Dublin's Temple Bar rang and rattled with talk about challenging roles, films in production and upcoming releases at the launch of this year's Jameson Dublin International Film Festival programme. For a while it was as if the war of the buttons had broken out.
Actor, writer and comedian Pat Shortt will be working alongside Michael McElhatton and Peter McDonald in a short film, which will be directed by Hugh O'Conor this month. For those who want to catch him, Shortt is on a countrywide stand-up tour, performing tonight in Monaghan town, and he's just finished writing the fifth series of Killinaskully, which they'll begin shooting in April.
Eoin Macken, who played the drug pusher in RTÉ soap Fair City until recently, when he was dragged off to jail, said he was just out of post-production on his feature film, Possession, which he scripted, directed and acts in. "It's a dark psychological thriller," he said.
A 60-second film by TCD zoology graduate Luke Saunders, which won the Jameson Great Taste in Film competition, was screened.
"I don't have favourites," declared festival director Gráinne Humphreys. "But if I did," she continued mischievously, "I would include the Brazilian City of Men; Silent Light; Lars and the Real Girl; Margot at the Wedding; the new version of Blade Runner; the documentary Crazy Love; and the Israeli film The Band's Visit."
The festival's international programme includes titles from "China, Iran, Estonia, Israel, Brazil, Mexico, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Korea, Japan and a short season of Italian films", she added.
The silent classic Pandora's Box will be accompanied by original live music from 3epkano. This seven-piece band, according to guitarist Matthew Nolan and bass player Laurence Mackin, composed and premiered their soundtrack in New York last November. Playing at the festival in the Savoy is "a great opportunity", the two of them agreed. "It's an astonishing film, and even almost 80 years later Louise Brooks's performance is still utterly mesmerising," said Mackin.
The 6th Jameson Dublin International Film Festival runs from Feb 15-24. More information on 01-6728861, e-mail info@dubliniff.com, www.dubliniff.com
Deane's new disc deemed delightful
A composer "at the height of his powers" came to meet his friends, fans and fellow musicians at the Arts Council in Dublin this week and to celebrate the launch of a CD of his work.
The music of Raymond Deane has "great umph", said an enthusiastic Gareth Costello, executive producer of the new disc of Deane's work. This is the first recording in a new series of orchestral work that is planned by collaborators RTÉ and the Arts Council over the next five years.
Deane "is at the height of his powers," said Costello. In Ripieno, the CD's main largest piece of music, "the orchestration is lush. The overall structure of the piece is extremely powerful. It's a very broad landscape," he added. Deane's music, he said, creates "a broad and evocative canvas".
"I think he's a very gifted composer," said Eithne Tinney, a producer with RTÉ Lyric FM. "You need to get used to the language to really enjoy all that's there in it,"she said. "All of Raymond's music needs multiple listenings . . . It's very dense, very demanding to listen to, quite intellectual, it's not for the faint-hearted," she warned.
"We aim to create a significant national cultural archive of high-quality Irish music recordings, and in so doing raise the profile of Irish composers and performers in Ireland and abroad," explained Mary Cloake, Arts Council director of the initiative.
Learder of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra Alan Smale, conductors Colman Pearce and Robert Houlihan, composer Seóirse Bodley, and the recording's solo violinist Christine Pryn were among those who came to the launch.
The three compositions on the disc were commissioned by RTÉ and premiered by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra with Gerhard Markson as conductor. The collaboration between the Arts Council and RTÉ will "ensure that these recordings gain strong national and international recognition and distribution," said Séamus Crimmins, executive director of RTÉ Performing Groups.
A rare sculpting showcase
They came from near and far, leaving foundries, quarries, studios and smithies to attend a show of their work, Wall & Plinth at Dublin's Peppercanister Gallery.
The sculptors who are in a group show - including Eilis O'Connell ARHA, who came from Cork; Graham Gingles RUA, who came from Antrim; Adolfo Estrada who travelled from Spain; and Robert Janz who journeyed from the US - work with a range of materials, including bronze, glass, aluminium, marble and wood.
The show comprises work by 13 sculptors. Deirdre McLoughlin flew in from the Netherlands and Sonja Landweer travelled up from Thomastown in Co Kilkenny. John Behan RHA came early, travelling from Galway. Brian King (who was with his wife Tania), Eileen McDonagh and Michael Warren ARHA were all at the show too. Only Carolyn Mulholland RHA and Breon O'Casey were unable to attend.
"Sculpture is an art form that tends to attract people who are very committed," said Aidan Dunne, art critic of The Irish Times, who opened the show. "They're in it for the long haul."
Sculpture "is much more exposed to the scrutiny of the viewer", he said, unlike a painting, which, hanging on the wall, can recede and fit in, he added. But sculpture "is not merely a decoration . . . It is something really substantial in the world, another solid object in your world . . . It requires a level of adjustment and commitment."
He said it was "quite rare that you get an exhibition that's devoted entirely to sculpture . . . It's an expensive media."
"I love the austerity of it, the originality of it," said gallery owner Antoinette Murphy, looking at a bronze piece of sculpture by McLoughlin, called Black O.
Two works by Gingles, Pyramid of the magician and Folly 3, "are sort of follies to man's silliness", explained the artist.
Among those who came to enjoy the work were artist Liam Belton, Adrienne Symes, a painter and director of the Graphic Studio, the painter David Crone, Tanya Nyegaard of the Dublin Art Foundry, and former senator Dr Mary Henry.
Wall & Plinth is at the Peppercanister Gallery, Dublin 2, until Feb 20
Island mentalities
'All was pink and the sea was a warm violet . . . " It might have been black dark and blowing a southwesterly beyond the big window, but inside Galway Arts Centre it was a golden summer's evening on a Connemara island.
"Close your eyes," Martin Dillon had advised us, as he made magic of memories recorded by his great-uncle, Belfast artist Gerald Dillon. The occasion was the opening of Inishlacken: A Place Apart, an exhibition of the work of 23 artists who have spent time on the now uninhabited island over the past seven years.
Curator of the project is Roundstone-based Rosie McGurran, herself a distinguished Belfast artist. She was drawn to the outcrop on reading James MacIntyre's Three Men on an Island, the Blackstaff Press account of a hedonistic summer spent there in 1951 with Dillon and fellow artist George Campbell RHA. Just as Dillon had encouraged Nano Reid and others to visit, so McGurran nurtured an informal residency, supported by Galway County Council, which has been taken up by Mick O'Dea, Aideen Barry, Margaret Irwin, Kathleen Furey, Jay Murphy and many others.
Creature comforts are limited - no running water, no electricity - but Aran island artist Sean O'Flaithearta, who had created the striking Geansaí Iascaire out of periwinkles, saved an image on his mobile of one of several very trusting baby rabbits. Dolores Lyne, also a participant, is now working towards a solo exhibition in Norman Villa Gallery, Salthill, in March.
Martin Dillon, who flew from the US for the occasion, described it as a very emotional occasion and said he hoped Inishlacken would travel north, and further. - Lorna Siggins
McGurran will talk about the exhibition, which continues until March 1, in the Galway Arts Centre, Dominick Street, at 2pm today