IFI blog

February at the IFI

2012-01-27T16:32:00.000Z

Welcome to the IFI’s February programme and abusy month of great new releases and old favourites.

Two great directors, Polanski and Cronenberg,prove they are still at the top of their game with the release of Carnageand A Dangerous Method respectively. Good news for Michael Fassbender’sever increasing fan base as February means another chance to see him on screenas he delivers yet another stunning performance as Carl Jung in Cronenberg’s ADangerous Method.

Roman Polanski's Carnage

The IFI regularly brings you the opportunityto experience cinema classics on the big screen and there is a bumper crop inFebruary. As a timely follow-on to our celebration of the Prix Jean Vigo aspart of the 2011 IFI French Film Festival we are delighted to be showing anewly restored L’Atalante – the masterwork of Vigo’s short but veryinfluential career. Some of you may have been lucky enough to attend thescreening in November which was introduced by Jean Vigo’s daughter Luce; it isan extraordinary film not to be missed. February also sees the re-release indigital cinema format of Casablanca and what better way to celebrateValentine’s Day than by revisiting this ultimate classic in all its cinematicglory.

Casablanca - 70th Anniversary Trailer

February is the month of the Jameson DublinInternational Film Festival which takes place citywide from the 16th to 26thwith a packed programme of screenings and special events connecting films fromall over the world. We are delighted to be collaborating with JDIFF again withtwo very special programmes. Andrew Kötting is one of the U.K.’s mostdistinctive and inspiring experimental film makers. His work as an artist isnot defined by any discipline and encompasses sound art, installation pieces,avant-garde theatre, short films, artists' books and full-length features. Thevery individual nature of his film work has led him to be described as the heirto English dissidents such as Derek Jarman and Peter Greenaway, and his claimthat films “should show signs of the berserk or slightly psychotic, an attemptto reflect the human condition” may give you a flavour of what to expect.Kötting will be joining us for a discussion with GradCAM fellow Martin McCabefollowing screenings of his new film This Our Still Life and hiscritically-acclaimed debut feature Gallivant.

Andrew Kötting in This Is Our Still Life

We are also delighted to be screening films by the prolific amateur Derry filmmaker Terence McDonald for the first time, as part of theJDIFF Out of the Past programme, which brings treasures frominternational film archives to Dublin. The Terence McDonald film collection,part of the IFI Irish Film Archive, is an extraordinary body of work thatdefies any previously held perceptions of amateur filmmakers. Criticallyacclaimed at the time, it has rarely been seen in public since, despite theinfluence McDonald’s work has had on subsequent Northern Irish directors suchas John T. Davis.

From Casablanca to rare Archive films –it is a diverse and very busy month at the IFI and we hope you enjoy it!

Sarah Glennie

Director

Is There Anybody Out There?

2012-01-17T10:45:00.000Z

The first fatalities of cinema’sdigital metamorphosis are dropping all around the world. From Deli toDublin, Hollywood to Helsinki, projectionists are being rubbed out, enmasse. This has not come as a surprise to us, as this digital revolutionhas been on our particular horizon for at least a decade. Mostmultiplexes you now visit are automated. There is nobody anymore watchingyour backs from above. Sure, somebody will (eventually) come runningshould you have cause to complain, but you are ultimately at the mercy of theIT specialist and his firmware.

The IFI is a particularexception. The nature of an institute and archive is that we have to beable to facilitate all formats. This includes digital in all itsforms, such as Digibeta, DVD, Bluray and DCP. And indeed film, whether itbe 8, 16, 35 or 70mm. Such places throughout the globe will becomethe last talent pool for our particular skill set.

So, then, it is a skill, but isit art? Projectionists often talk about film the way sailors talkabout the sea, as an unpredictable heartbreaker you could easily drownin. Every one of us have war stories to share and scars to show. But it’s not just about the skill: it’s the caring. If it is anart, I think that’s where it lies. Projectionisim may be my job, but I love cinema, and I endeavour to bring a personal touchwhenever possible. How is that possible?All you’re doing is stickingon the movie.

Well, a recent example of thiswould the The Artist. Our programme begins with the screen openingto full size to show you the trailer for War Horse in Cinemascope (Ithink we are the only cinema in Dublin that tries to run trailers in theirproper format. It’s not always possible to run them this way, for technicalreasons, but ideally there really should be no black bars on moviescreens). The lens on the projector changes, our masking closes halfwayfor the obligatory adverts and remaining trailers. In The Artist’scase, we have a surprise, when the masking closes further to the film’soriginal aspect ratio there’s Casablanca: a brand new glorious previewof the forthcoming 70th anniversary re-release. Then, the lightsdim completely, the volume rises and our feature begins...

All of the above is done byhand. As is every show in all our screens. We may not get itperfect each time, but know this: there is still somebody up therewatching over you, and they love cinema just as much as you do.

Paul Markey
IFI Projectionist

Guest blog: THE ARTIST

2012-01-13T10:14:00.000Z

The Artistis not so much a silent film as a sound film that keeps its mouth shut. Weaccept that this is a choice, a gimmick, a deliberate discipline, because weare made aware of this self-limitation early on and at several key moments inthe film when the ‘sound barrier’ is violated. It’s a masterful decision.Because director Michel Hazanaviciusdraws our attention to this vow of silence, the film opens up for acontemporary audience. We are seduced. We don’t need to know that the story ishistorically well researched.

Its story of a male and female star whose careersmove in opposite directions with the arrival of sound resembles that of JohnGilbert and Greta Garbo. (When the great Swedish actress appeared in soundfilms in 1930 it gave rise to one of the great PR headlines in film history:‘Garbo Talks!’). We don’t need to recognise its parallels and intersections withother great Hollywood treatments of its setting and themes: A Star is Born (1937, 1954), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Singin’ in the Rain (1952). We don’tneed to know that this homage to American film’s Golden Age is, in fact,largely the creative product of a French cast and crew. What was essentialabout silent film, the human face, is here the primary point of engagement thatdraws us in, involves us deeply in a story about beautiful strangers and allowsus, ultimately, to experience why silent film, before the Babel of sound, soquickly and comprehensively conquered the world as the art form of the masses.

Watching The Artist, we encountercinema as those early audiences did and realise that, without dialogue, weenter more fully into the experience. Asking what just happened is meaningless.But the film’s effect is not derived from mere nostalgia. It is also a timelyfable on a modern topic: human obsolescence by technology. In the film, thearrival of sound almost fatally undermines George Valentin’s status andsuccess, but it might as well be automation, downsizing or outsourcing. This isno coincidence.

Silent film (particular in the period in which The Artist is set) very often sought outuniversal themes, or more particularly themes that paradoxically questioned themodernity of which it was such a glowing emblem of. You’ll find similar themesin F. W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh(1924), King Vidor’s The Crowd (1928)or Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936) — allmasterpieces by silent-era artists, but only one of whom made the successfultransition to sound.

Tony Tracy

The Artist runs at the IFI from January 6th - 26th. For more information and bookings, visit www.ifi.ie.

Due to phenomenal demand an extra late-night screening of The Artist will take place at 11pm on Friday 13th January at the IFI. For more information and bookings, contact the IFI Box Office on 01 679 3477 or book online [here].

On Spielberg, Sinyard and EMPIRE OF THE SUN

2012-01-11T16:26:00.000Z

There are several reasons to celebrate theIrish Film Institute’s season of selected works by Steven Spielberg, programmedto coincide with the release of War Horse.

Steven Spielberg on the set of War Horse

First and foremost there are the films themselves, back on a big screen wherethey truly belong: the IFI season takes in a quartet of his most celebratedworks — Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan — as well as a lesser-seen Spielberg thatserves as a perfect companion piece to War Horse, his 1987 adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s WWII memoir Empire of the Sun.

War Horse

Secondly, any opportunity to inviterenowned author and academic Neil Sinyard to Dublin is a welcome one. Neil willgive a talk at the IFI this Saturday at 3.10p.m., discussing Spielberg’s careerto date with a particular emphasis on the titles screening in this season. Hisillustrated talk on Woody Allen was a highlight of last year’s IFI events, andNeil’s 1987 tome The Films of StevenSpielberg remains a seminal work, one we can only hope he plans to somedayupdate. We’ll be cornering him on that one.

Jaws

Despite continued commercial success,Spielberg’s work has generated considerable derision over the last four decades.Critics in particular continue to take issue with his endeavors in ‘serious’filmmaking and are already sharpening their knives in anticipation of nextyear’s biopic of Abraham Lincoln, currently filming with Daniel Day-Lewis inthe title role. It often appears that he’s damned for his ambitions to flex hisartistic muscles and doomed to disappoint admirers of his iconic ’70s and ’80sclassics, when eagerly anticipated returns to popcorn moviemaking like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the CrystalSkull fall flat.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

At the same time, no other filmmaker castsas tall a shadow over modern cinema: Spielberg didn’t just create a body ofwork, he crafted a language — one winningly channeled by J.J. Abrams in hisloving homage Super 8. As mogul andsuper-producer, he’s transformed the cinema beyond recognition, while retaininga boyish enthusiasm for a medium he still adores. When firing on all cylinders,and fully engaged by his source material, few filmmakers can conjure sheercinematic magic like Spielberg still can. Longtime admirers revelled in hisrecent animated debut, Tintin: The Secretof the Unicorn, an unfairly maligned romp which culminated in anextraordinary — and gleefully extended — chase sequence that proved beyondquestion that he’s still got game.

Empire of the Sun

This iconic filmography still contains someunheralded gems, which is why we strongly recommend that you avail of the rareopportunity to catch 1987’s Empire of theSun, presented at the IFI in glorious large-format 70mm. Featuring astunning performance from a young Christian Bale — no other filmmaker directschildren like Spielberg — this tale of a young boy’s coming of age in aJapanese Prisoner of War camp is a truly extraordinary and grown-up work, andto this day a sorely underappreciated one. Arguably, it’s Steven Spielberg’smasterpiece.

Derek O’Connor

For further details on the Steven Spielbergseason, click HERE.

To celebrate the opening of WarHorse at the IFI from Fri Jan 13^th, we are delighted to offer acopy of the original novel on which the film is based to 5 lucky people! Simplyvote for your favourite Spielberg movie in our Facebook poll before 11am on 13^thJan to be in with a chance of winning. Winners will be chosen at random afterthe poll closes. Courtesy of The Walt Disney Company, Ireland.

Silent Scores – Scores of Silents

2012-01-06T17:37:00.003Z

The Artist isn’tthe only silent masterpiece to screen in IFI this week. On Monday, January 9th we launch a new series of must-seecinema from the IFI Irish FilmArchive with Come On Over – an absolute cracker made in the original silent era in 1922.

The film which we acquired recently from ourfriends at MoMA, New York, is a lively comedy about a young man who emigratesfrom a thatched cottage in the bucolic backwater of Lisdoonvarna to a roominghouse in the bustling metroplis of New York leaving behind his beloved, Moyna,and his clay-pipe-smoking mother. Fullof romantic misunderstanding and merry japes and peopled with society dames and drunks andsmiling Irish cops, Come On Overfeatures a brilliant cast of Irish and Irish American players including thedashing Ralph Graves, the indomitable ingénue Colleen Moore, and the wonderfulcomedienne Cork-born Kate Price.

It’s a joy from start to finish, not leastfor the inter-titles written in a bizarre Oirish brogue. Some of my favourites include “But, Shane darlin’, you’re making me yourwiddy before you make me your wife!”; “It’s my little Moyna or her fetch – Only your voice is taller than itonce was”; “It’s yourself that’s had the use of the May dew on her cheeks” and there’s lots more where those came from.

Adding to the entertainment and creating a live musicalsoundtrack will be the clever musicalunderscoring by pianist, Morgan Cooke and the lively jigs of piper Maitiú OCaiseide.

Sunniva O'Flynn

IFI Curator

All proceeds go to the IFI Irish Film Archive Preservation Fund.

For more information on Monthly Must-See Cinema and Come on Over, please visit www.ifi.ie or call the IFI Box Office on 01-679 3477.

January at the IFI

2012-01-03T10:54:00.002Z

Happy New Year and welcometo the start of the IFI’s 20^th anniversary celebrations!

2012 is an excitingyear for the IFI as we celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the IFI thefilm centre and IFI Irish Film Archive being in Temple Bar. During that timethe IFI has played a very important part in the lives of generations of filmlovers and with the support of a very loyal audience, has grown to being one ofIreland’s busiest and most relevant cultural organisations. We look forward tocelebrating 20 years of great film with you over the course of the year.

Come On Over

As part of our 20^thanniversary celebrations we are starting a new monthly programme of great filmsfrom the IFI Irish Film Archive. We are beginning on January 9th withone of our newest acquisitions, Come on Over, a 1922 silent film that we have brought back to Ireland with the helpof the Film Department of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York. Withlive musical accompaniment this is not to be missed and all proceeds from thescreening will go towards the IFI Irish Film Archive Preservation Fund.

War Horse

There must be fewamongst us that haven’t been gripped at some point by Steven Spielberg’sextraordinary power as a story-teller. To mark the release of his new film War Horse, we are showing a smallselection of his films, focusing on two of his recurrent themes: war andchildhood. Spanning from Raiders of the Lost Ark to Schindler’s List, itis a great chance to see some old favourites on the big screen (and on 70mm)and to re-evaluate the work of one of the most successful and popular filmdirectors of all time. Esteemed film critic and writer, Professor Neil Sinyardwill be giving an illustrated lecture on January 14^th about theextraordinary legacy of Spielberg’s career.

Steve McQueen and Michael Fassbender on the set of Shame

Steve McQueen made anextraordinary transition from film artist to feature director with Hunger in 2009 and his second film, Shame, fully delivers on all the promiseof that debut. His collaboration with Michael Fassbender continues with anotherstaggering performance by this very, very talented actor. The result is anextremely powerful and compelling film that will stay with you long after itfinishes, if only for the mastery of the filmmaking. It opens on January 13^thbut there will be a special preview on January 10^th with a livesatellite Q&A with Steve McQueen.

The Artist

Michel Hazanavicius’ ‘silent’film The Artist was the unexpectedhit at Cannes in 2011 and has received a host of Golden Globe nominations andis being hotly tipped for a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards. Itcaptures all the glamour, passion and drama of Hollywood’s silent era andoffers respite from what may be a less than glamorous 2012!

It’s cold outside sowhat better place to be than in the cinema… so come along and lose yourself inthese and some of the other wonderful films that we have screening this month!

Sarah Glennie

Director

For more information on the IFI Irish Film Archive Preservation Fund, please visit our website http://www.ifi.ie/support/donations/.

Film education - to the power of Ghibli

2011-12-16T17:14:00.000Z

Toalmost quote a well-known UK retailer, never knowingly underestimate thepotential of film to educate in a whole range of contexts. Here at IFIEducation, we are fairly used to full houses of teens glued to subtitled filmson weekday mornings, despite the conventional expectation that ‘young peoplewon’t watch subtitles’. Yesterday, however, we had a fresh reminder of just howmuch a good film can engage a hugely diverse audience.

The Secret World of Arrietty, the latest film from thefamed Japanese Studio Ghibli, was showing as part of our schools’ programme.The previous day, IFI Education’s Dee Quinlan and Elaine MacGinty looked aftera full house of primary school pupils who watched and loved the dubbed version.Dee introduced the film, and talked a little about Japanese animation and howthey might compare it with more familiar animation titles. Positive feedbackgathered by Elaine afterwards ranged from the observant, ‘Iloved the small details in the house’, to the surprising, ‘Humans and small peoplecould connect’.

Butit was the second screening that offered both a snapshot of film education and thepotential of cinema itself. The largest group in the house were from an Irishlanguage medium secondary school where students study Japanese. Their Japaneseteacher introduced the film in Japanese and they watched the film to hearJapanese being spoken and experience Japanese film culture. A second group werefrom a deaf school, for whom the film was accessible as subtitled and theirteacher signed Dee’s introduction in English. The other schools were TransitionYear students watching for film studies. While not quite Babel, engagement withthe film was through five different languages, with the initial connectionbeing the audience’s literacy in the language of film itself.

Duringour two-year research project, Film Focus, the results of which are due forpublication in early Spring, we and the many film educators with whom we workedobserved a whole host of ways in which film education is taking place aroundthe country. We also were consistently reminded of the fact that the world foryoung people, irrespective of ability, is a visually mediated one and it’s thejob of education to reflect that. That’s why access to a range of film isessential, be it through subtitling, providing readers, schools programmes,festivals, special events. We’re hopingfor many more babel-esque experiences with schools’ audiences during the newterm, even if they yield nothing more than one of yesterday’s feedback remarks,‘I liked the happy ending’…

Alicia McGivern

Head of IFI Education

Visit our website for more information on IFI Education and IFI Schools Programme.

For booking or more information on IFI Education events, contact Dee Quinlan (t 01 679 5744, e: schools@irishfilm.ie).

The Horgan Projector

2011-12-14T16:09:00.000Z

This 35mm cinemaprojector, which is displayed in the window of the Tiernan MacBride library, wasdonated to the IFI Irish Film Archive by Jim Horgan, Furbo, Co Galway, who isthe grandson of James Horgan, photographer and shoemaker of Brown Street,Youghal, Co. Cork.

In the 1890s and1900s, James and his brother Thomas Horgan toured Youghal and neighbouringtowns and villages with a magic lantern slide and moving image show. Theyprojected slides of local and foreign scenes, films from the Lumieré Brothersand local topicals - films they made themselves of local beauty spots andactivities.

Such was thepopularity of these film shows that in 1910 the Horgans began buildingYoughal’s first cinema. Seven years later, after considerable delays caused bythe First World War, the Horgan Picture Palace opened in Friar Street on StStephen’s night 1917.

The cinema seated600 people with wooden benches to the front of the auditorium and morecomfortable, upholstered seating to the rear. The walls of the auditorium andfoyer were elaborately decorated with hand-painted scenes.

Variety shows atthe cinema included slide presentations, newsreels, short silent dramas andsing-alongs, where the words of popular songs were projected on the screen. Theprojections were accompanied by the Horgan’s Picture Theatre Orchestra.

The Horgan's Picture Theatre Orchestra

A great attractionfor the cinema audiences was the occasional screening of the Youghal Gazette,a newsreel featuring items of local interest produced by the Horgans forexhibition in their cinema. Items included: Corpus Christi processions, peopleleaving Sunday mass, the return of local men from Wormwood Scrubs prison inEngland (c. 1917) celebrations at the end of World War 1, outings to the seaand a series of clever photographic animations. These films have beentransferred from the nitrate originals and are preserved at the IFI Irish FilmArchive.

The Kamm projectorwas probably one of the two original machines installed for the opening of thecinema in 1917, but certainly dates from no later than the mid 1920s. It wasadapted for screening sound films, possibly in 1929, when the Trial of MayDugan (dir. Bayard Veiller)- ‘an all talking picture’- was shown inthe Picture Palace. The projector was powered by an electrical generator with ahand-crank built in for emergency use.

The Kaleelamp-house currently mounted on the machine is not the original one. It was notunusual to update the lamp-house as more powerful luminants became available.This Kalee model housed a carbon-arc lamp with a manually advanced arc-rodsystem mounted before an adjustable convex mirror.

The film reelswere enclosed within heavy metal spool boxes which provided protection againstfire from the highly flammable nitrate film stocks used commercially until the1950s. The Kamm machine was somewhat unusual in that the take-up reel washoused within the lower body of the projector and not jutting away from theprojector frame. The projector carried reels of no more than 2,000 ftapproximately 20mins at sound speed. Feature length films were shown on twoprojectors with each projector showing alternate reels.

The cinemafeatured a back-projection system with projectors located behind the screen.The small space that was created between the projection box and the screen wasused for some time as a bedroom. The cinema remained open until 1988. In 1996the building reopened as a Heritage Craft Centre.

The IFI Tiernan MacBride Library

This projector wasmeticulously restored by Bernard Matthews (Ardee, Co Louth) a member of theProjected Picture Trust. The Trust, registered in England, is committed to thepreservation and exhibition of still and moving image equipment.

In addition to themagnificent projector, the IFI Irish Film Archive building also displays the camera on whichthe brothers shot their films and the Archiveholds a document collection relating to the administrative history of theHorgan Picture Palace and spanning the years 1917 -1956 collection. Theseinclude screenings diaries, gross and net takings records, accounts ledgers,logs of ticket sales, and carbon copied correspondence.

Source: IFI Irish Film Archive

Support the IFI Irish Film Archive Preservation Fund and donate today [here].

Ballymun Lullaby: community cinema

2011-12-13T10:39:00.000Z

Frank Berry, director of Ballymun Lullaby shareshis thoughts about the resurgence of community spirit in Ireland in recentyears, and how he came to create this film. It is opening at the IFI on FridayDecember 16^th and will run until the 22^nd. The BallymunChildren’s Choir will sing Christmas carols in the IFI before the screenings onDecember 16th and 18^th, and Frank will take part in a post-screeningQ&A on 16^th.

My work in the area ofcommunity video has been the most rewarding of all the work I’ve been involvedin. I have directed probably more than 20 community projects, mainly fororganisations with little money but in need of promotion. These local filmswould have big themes covering educational opportunities, personal development,disability and social disadvantage. I made one such community video for theBallymun Music Programme in 2003 and when I returned to Ballymun in February2009, I was struck by the changes in the area and the success of Ron Cooney’swork. Ron and I met for coffee and that’s how Ballymun Lullaby the filmbegan.

Due to the film’s roots, I have been describing BallymunLullaby as a piece of community cinema. Many commentators have spoken aboutthe return of community spirit in Ireland since the boom ended, how society isreconnecting with values that had become less important. This inspires me tofind other stories that I believe are as important as this one. I believe RonCooney’s sincerity and vision gives us hope.

And I know I won’t have to look far. Community cinema is allaround us.

Frank Berry

Director

For more information and bookings, visit our website or call on 01 679 3477.

Sharing European cinematographic heritage

2011-12-02T17:23:00.001Z

The popularity of content sharing websiteslike YouTube has led to an expectation from the general public that movingimage archives should be able to make all their holdings available on-line. A reasonableexpectation you might think, but making material available in this way is muchmore difficult than most casual viewers might imagine.

Once Upon a Tram

Like many moving imagearchives, the IFI Irish Film Archive does not own the rights for 99.9 % of thematerial is holds, so must seek permission from the copy right owners of eachpiece of footage it wants to make available to the public on a case-by-casebasis. In addition to the resource implications of this process, rights holdersare understandably wary of their personal collections being available in amanner over which they have no control, and of course the misappropriation andreuse of material without the owners’ permission is another big concern. Asarchivists we have to try and find a balance between making the collections wehold widely available to the public and protecting the rights and goodwill ofthe people who have entrusted their films into our care.

In recent years the IFI Irish Film Archivehas published a number of DVDs with the aim of bringing our collections to awider audience and we also recently began to work with the Europa FilmTreasures project which encourages European citizens to discover their sharedEuropean cinematographic heritage. Theproject is the brain-child of Serge Bromberg, founder of Paris-based LobsterFilms. Serge had long been aware of the meticulous work being undertaken byfilm archives throughout Europe and of the difficulties that existed in makingthis work available to a wider public. He felt that an online project thatrespected the rights of the copyright holders and used anti-copying andanti-downloading security measures, would give film archives a democratic wayto highlight their collections in an international context.

Once Upon a Tram

The IFI Irish Film Archive currently has 4titles available to watch on the site, with more being added all the time. Eachfilm is translated into French, German, Italian and Spanish to ensure it isaccessible to as many European citizens as possible. Our most popular film is Once Upon a Tram (1959) which to date has received over 20,000viewings. Produced by Leinster Studios, OnceUpon a Tram looks at one of the last journeys of the Howth Tram and is arecord of an elegant and leisurely form of transport of a by-gone era. The filmwas made with the realisation that trams were about to become a thing of thepast in Dublin, with the opening scenes of the film featuring shots of tramlines in Dublin’s city centre being dug up. OnceUpon A Tram focuses on the differentpeople who make use of this mode of transport and is narrated by Cyril Cusack.

Also on view on the EFT website are Voyage to Recovery (1953) and Tony Bacillusand Co (1943) These films were part of a series of educational and publicinformation films made by the National Film Institute (now the IFI) in the1940s and 1950s on behalf of the department of Health.

Voyage To Recovery

Voyageto Recovery aimed to demystify and de-stigmatise TBand its treatment. It features Brian (JoeLynch) a middle class family man and loving husband, who is undergoing treatmentand convalescence in one of the government’s modern and well equipped TB sanatoriums.By refusing to be ashamed of his illness, Brian addresses the prejudices thatexisted in the public consciousness at that time regarding the disease. Thefilm subtly reassures the public that the government was dealing with theproblem of TB in an effective manner.

Tony Bacillus & Co

The second title Tony Bacillus & Co (1946) is a comical public information filmabout the threat of tuberculosis in which TB is represented by a menacingpuppet, who attempts to infect a little boy puppet by placing various hazards -spitting, coughing and drinking unpasteurised milk - in his path. However, theboy puppet is well versed in disease prevention and T. Bacillus is foiled. Lastyear this film was chosen by the Europa Film Treasures project to have a scorewritten by Anaïs-Gaëll Lozac'h and recorded by the prestigious ParisConservatoire, and this addition greatly enhances the viewer’s enjoyment of thefilm.

Ciall Cheannaigh

Our latest addition to the project Ciall Cheannaigh (1969) is a delightfuland quirky film made by Guinness brewery employee Mike Lawlor as part of the company’sFilm Club, and takes a humorous look at the then recent phenomenon of shoppingcentres in Ireland. Showing the hustle and bustle of shoppers in Dunnes Storesin Cornelscourt, the film accurately captures burgeoning consumer society andis a charming portrait of Irish suburban life in the late 1960s. On the look-out for bargains are a motley groupof shoppers ranging from a priest and his housekeeper, grocery-shopping youngcouples, lingerie-buying ladies and children of all ages. The excitement ofthis new shopping experience is further conveyed by a frenetic soundtrack by renownedtraditional Irish musician Dónal Lunny.

To see the films mentioned above visit theEFT website and we will let you know of any new additions to the project.

Kasandra O'Connell

Head of IFI Irish Film Archive

Support the IFI Irish Film Archive Preservation Fund - for more information and how to donate, visit www.ifi.ie/preservationfund

For more information on IFI Irish Film Archive DVDs, visit IFI Film Shop or follow @IFI_FilmShop on Twitter.

December at the IFI

2011-11-30T12:05:00.001Z

Welcome to the IFI’s December programme and some great films to see us through to the end of the year.

The much anticipated Argentinian film, Las Acacias, opens on December 9th. First time director Pablo Giorgelli’s film received a rapturous reception at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, winning the prestigious Camera d’Or, and has gone on to win over festival audiences and critics around the world, gathering momentum as one of the must see films of 2011. You will regret it if you miss it.

Las Acacias

One of the surprising stories in film this year has been a turn to 3D by some of the great auteurs: Wenders, Herzog and now Scorsese, who has adapted the bestselling children’s novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret into his first 3D film, Hugo. The film has been puzzling film critics for while but the reports back from those that have seen it is that it is, as Scott Foundas writes in his programme notes, a ‘Scorsese Triumph’, and a master class in how to use 3D to the best effect.

Hugo

Above all, Hugo is a eulogy to the importance of making sure our film heritage isn’t lost. Scorsese is a passionate advocate of film preservation, and has said “Film is history; with every foot of film that is lost we lose a link to our culture, to the world around us and to ourselves”. This is something that we believe absolutely to be true and the IFI continues to do everything in its power to ensure that Ireland’s film heritage is preserved for the future and, crucially, that is accessible for people to see.

The collection that we hold in the IFI Irish Film Archive now numbers 27,000 cans of film and over 10,000 broadcast tapes, but what these numbers really add up to is Ireland’s cultural, political and social stories. Film is a great communicator and can bring these stories to life in a unique way. However, film is also fragile and has to be kept in climate-controlled vaults in order to prevent deterioration, which it is why it is essential that Ireland has a film archive that can properly preserve this precarious history.

IFI Irish Film Archive

We are the national film archive but we are at a critical time in our development: our archive building in Temple Bar has reached capacity and we cannot accept any more material, meaning that precious collections are in danger of being lost. We urgently need to build our Preservation Centre at the National University of Maynooth, on their campus, and we just have to raise our shortfall of €300,000 to ensure that our films have a safe, secure, long-term home and that the Archive can continue to ensure that.

GAA Football Gold DVD

Please help us do this in whatever way you can; donations of any size make a very real difference. Don’t forget that proceeds from our new GAA Football Gold and other great Archive products in the IFI Film Shop go directly to the Preservation Fund, so do your Christmas shopping there and support film at the same time! Thank you very much for your support. Visit www.ifi.ie/preservationfund for more details or to make a donation.

With all good wishes from everyone at the IFI for a happy and peaceful Christmas and New Year, and we look forward to seeing you in 2012.

Sarah Glennie

Director

See Saoirse Ronan in the IFI Irish film Archive Preservation Fund video and visit

www.ifi.ie/preservationfund.

For new releases, DVDs, books and special offers - follow IFI Film Shop @IFI_FilmShop on Twitter.

Closing Weekend Highlights at the IFI French Film Festival

2011-11-25T10:29:00.000Z

It's hard to believe that we're already hit the final weekend of the 2011 IFI French Film Festival, but don't despair - many would argue that we've saved the best for last, so don't miss out on the final weekend of big films and guests.

Jean-Pierre Darroussin in Early One Morning

We're very excited about one of our special Festival guests this year - the one and only Jean-Pierre Darroussin, star of Early One Morning. In this excellent drama he gives a riveting performance as a bank excecutive who calmly shoots his bosses dead and then reminisces on how he got to this point while he waits for the police to arrive. Darroussin will introduce the screening on Friday night and then will partcipate in a Q&A with esteemed French critic and documentary filmmaker Michel Ciment. This Q&A promises to be a real treat. Darroussin will also introduce the screening on Saturday (while Michel Ciment will also introduce his own film, Once Upon a Time . . . A Clockwork Orange).

The Minister

Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, The Minister, Pierre Schoeller's study of a government minister dealing with political and personal crises, is a true highlight of this year's Festival. It has one screening only (Friday night) and tickets are selling fast, so we strongly urge you to book soon so you don't miss out on this incredible film.

Claude Miller

We were due to welcome Claude Miller, one of France's most influential and respected filmmakers, to the Festival to introduce his two films that we have on offer: I'm Glad my Mother is Alive and See How they Dance. Unfortunately, we just received the news that Claude is unwell and he deeply regrets not being able to make it to Dublin on this occasion. Instead, critic and filmmaker Michel Ciment will introduce both of these films.

If you're still gagging for more guests, this Saturday (12pm) also sees a free panel discussion entitled French Cinema Now. Participating will be critic Michel Ciment, actor Jean-Pierre Darroussin, director Anna Novion, and members of the Irish film industry. The panellists will debate trends and movements in French cinema, and will examine comparisons with Irish filmmaking. The event is free but ticketed.

Beloved

It was chosen to officially close this year's Cannes Film Festival, and we've selected it to play twice over our closing weekend - Beloved finally hits our screens. You may have seen the image on posters all over town and adorning the cover of this year's Festival programme, and we're delighted to finally get to screen Christophe Honoré's thoroughly enjoyable 'musical' Beloved. The films spans four decades in the life of its protagonist Madeline and its sports an all-star cast including Catherine Deneuve, Chiara Mastroianni, Ludivine Sagnier and Louis Garrel.

So there's all this (and plenty more) to catch over the final weekend of the Festival. To see the full programme, please visit our website, and don't miss any Festival updates by following @IFI_Dub on Twitter and use #IFIFrench.

Ross Keane
Public Affairs & Marketing Director

We're halfway through the IFI French Film Festival...

2011-11-22T13:04:00.002Z

It's been a busy few days as we hit the halfway point at the IFI French Film Festival, but we have lots of highlights still to come...

The Silence of Joan director Philippe Ramos

with actor Liam Cunningham

After the Gala Opening last Wednesday, the Festival guests just kept on coming throughout the opening weekend. Director of The Bird, Yves Caumon participated in a second Q&A on Thursday following his film, and no sooner had he flown home that Philippe Ramos, director of The Silence of Joan, joined us to introduce his film on both Friday and Saturday. As an added bonus, Liam Cunningham - star of The Silence of Joan - also joined us for Saturday's screening. Luce Vigo, daughter of legendary director Jean Vigo and President of the Jean Vigo Prize, was here throughout the weekend to introduce the selection of screenings within this programme strand.

Luce Vigo with Laurent Marie

There were sell-out screenings to beat the band over the weekend. Romantics Anonymous was the first film in the Festival to sell out (don't worry, it will return for one week only from December 16th), but was quickly followed by queues leading out the front door for the double screenings of Declaration of War, His Mother's Eyes and House of Tolerance.

Pater

The next few days sees a range of favourites from this year's Cannes and Venice film festivals. Selected for competition at Cannes, Pater is Alain Cavalier's experimental narrative which proved an enormous hit with critics. Each month within the regular IFI programme, we host a special French Film Club screening in partnership with the Alliance Francaise, and to mark the second anniversary of this Club, Pater has been selected as the official French Film Club screening during this year's Festival. As with all Club screenings, IFI and Alliance Francaise members can avail of a special €7 discounted ticket price. We've also selected this screening as a special night for the IFI Best Members. So, to let all our blog readers in on a little secret, we'll be offereing all ticket holders a complimentary glass of French wine after tonight's screening. (Pater will also screen on Wednesday at 4pm).

A major hit at the Venice Film Festival was Abdellatif Kechiche's Black Venus which tells the true story of Sarah Baartman, an African slave exhibited as a freak show attraction in nineteenth century London and Paris. Yahima Torries is simply astonishing in the lead role, and this is definitely one of the hot tips of this year's Festival.

Service Entrance

If you saw Potiche earlier this year, you'll recognise Fabrice Luchini (Catherine Deneuve's chauvanistic husband in the '60s comedy) in Service Entrance. This is a light-hearted and amusing comedy of worlds colliding as staid banker begins to take pity on the plight of the maids working at his mansion. If you're a fan of Pedro Almodovar, you'll recognise a lot of the faces from his films.

It looks like the next few days are shaping up to be as busy as the last!

Ross Keane
Public Affairs & Marketing Director

To see the full programme, please visit our website.

Don't miss any Festival updates - follow @IFI_Dub on Twitter and use #IFIFrench

Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey

2011-11-22T10:40:00.000Z

Director Lelia Doolan reflects on the making of Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey

I hadn't thought beyond getting the film finished.

I hoped that it might give courage to new generations. There were times when Bernadette's prophecy: "It will be found under the bed when we're gone" seemed a definite possibility. She would also ask inconvenient questions like -- "what's the shape of this film?" when I'd still be moseying around in the dark under mountains of archive material asking myself the same question.

Bernadette McAliskey

We were a small band: herself and myself, Joe Comerford, Gordon Bruic – in vigorous and convivial altercation and debate. Further along the way, Deirdre McAliskey, Deirdre Learmont, Hugh Doolan and a small army of generous-minded pals pushed us along.

When the pieces were finally quilted together, we sat down together at the Galway Film Fleadh and took a long breath.

The documentary has been on the move since then – to London, to Glasgow and a great human rights gathering there; to Cork, and now for this welcome short run at the IFI before it travels to the north and further afield.

It seems to have a reviving effect on people’s spirits so far…

So good.

Lelia Doolan

Director of Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey

Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey runs exclusively at the IFI from November 18th - 24th.

For more information & bookings, please visit our website [here]

Job Shadow Initiative Award for the IFI Irish Film Archive

2011-11-18T20:42:00.000Z

Last April I had the rewarding experience of spending my work day in the company of Darren McCarthy, who was sent from the CRC on the Job Shadow Initiative. Brainchild of the IASE, this scheme teams disabled people with employees nationwide for a day or week every April. Its dual remit is education of companies in the potential benefits disabled people can bring to the workplace, while giving participants an insight into what it is like to work for a company for a day.

CRC Cert presentation at the Marino College

Credit must go the Lucy Collis, Darren’s key-worker for her fortuitous placement of a candidate with extraordinary suitability for the archive. Darren modestly introduced himself as a film collector, but is more of a curator, having amassed a personal archive of some thousands of film titles on DVD. Moreover, Darren has consolidated one of the largest personal repositories of film titles, with an exhaustive encyclopaedic knowledge of its content.

A cinematic kinship blossomed when I learned Darren was a fellow horror cinema enthusiast. Glaring gaps in my knowledge were filled and I was soon grounded in the realisation that I was a mere fan in the presence of an aficionado of great standing. From Hitchcock to Carpenter, Darren could answer any question on the genre. More impressive still was his talent for instant recall of any gem from his vast trove of film knowledge. This faculty was advanced beyond expertise, and any film organisation would benefit from such an exceptional asset.

Darren McCarthy at the IFI Irish Film Archive

Darren personifies the truth in the old saying ‘there’s no teaching like self-teaching’. His self-taught ethos was a catalytic inspiration for me to reinvigorate my own learning curve. I also felt Darren stimulated my colleagues in a distinct way, both more insightful and endearing that many esteemed visitors from ‘The Industry’ over the years.

For my part I wished to impart to Darren the hands-on experience of repairing a 35mm print post screening, and in urgent need of work. With splicer in hand we set to work on a Steenbeck, an antiquated pre-digital editing machine. We then updated the record for the film in inmagic, the IFA’s database on which its collections are meticulously catalogued. That we gelled as a team was evident in our completion of this task in record time.

In today’s proliferation of googling generalists, it was refreshing to behold Darren’s authoritative knowledge of a specialised field, wrought through years of dedicated film procurement and meticulous study. This was complemented with Darren’s fluid command of the net, evident in scenes he provided to illustrate films under discussion.

Gavin Martin (IFI) collecting the Award

While collecting our respective awards from presidential candidate Seán Gallagher and Lord Mayor Andrew Montague, Darren enthused about an I.T. course he was set to start at Marino College. I hope his exposure to our database will benefit this endeavour, especially if he creates records for his own vast collection some day.

Gavin Martin

Collections Officer

IFI Irish Film Archive

For more information on the IFI Irish Film Archive, visit our website [here].

Watch the IFI Irish Film Archive Preservation Fund film, starring Saoirse Ronan [here].

The IFI French Film Festival has begun...

2011-11-17T17:15:00.003Z

The 2011 IFI French Film Festival kicked off last night with the Gala Opening and screening of The Bird.

Maria Manthoulis (Unifrance Films), Director of The Bird Yves Caumon

and French Ambassador Emmanuelle D'Achon at the Gala Opening

After months of planning and preparation, the IFI French Film Festival finally kicked off in style last night with a gala screening of Yves Caumon's beautiful film The Bird. The Festival was officially opened by Sarah Glennie, Director of the IFI, Emmanuelle D'Achon, French Ambassador, and Yves Caumon, director of The Bird.

To a packed cinema, Yves Caumon charmed the audience and even posed the question of why cinemas around the world seem to be predominantly full of women?! The screening was followed by a Q&A with Yves, and then by the annual reception where the French wine flowed and the cheese went down a treat!

Yves Caumon introducing his film The Bird

But we can't all sit back now that the Festival has started as we're straight into the next 11 days (and nights) of films, discussions and guests. For anyone who missed the opening film last night (tickets sold out quite some time ago), there's a second chance to see The Bird this evening, and Yves Caumon will once again participate in a Q&A.

Declaration of War

There's an abundance of highlights to choose from over the next few days. France's official submission for next year's Oscars, Declaration of War, is on tonight (and will be screened again on Sunday evening) and is certainly one not-to-be-missed. Star of two films in this year's Festival, Catherine Deneuve has her first outing in His Mother's Eyes on Sunday evening, an intricately plotted study of mother-child relationships.

House of Tolerance

One of the standout films from Cannes this year, and one of the hottest tips of the Festival, is Bertrand Bonello's House of Tolerance which follows the lives and interweaving stories of prostitutes within a Parisian brothel. This may be your only opportunity to see this remarkable film, so seize the opportunity! And we're all ready to receive the second (of many) special guests at this year's Festival. Director Philippe Ramos will be with us on Friday and Saturday to introduce his film about Joan of Arc, The Silence of Joan.

Philippe Ramos

Meanwhile, back at the IFI Café Bar, we've suddenly come over all French and are offering a selection of tantalising Gallic specials for the duration of the Festival. You can even pre-book your table by calling the bar on 01 679 8712.

A bientot!

Ross Keane

Public Affairs & Marketing Director

To see the full programme, please visit our website.

Do not miss any Festival updates - follow @IFI_Dub on Twitter and use #IFIFrench

Launch of GAA Football Gold DVD - 9th November, Croke Park

2011-11-15T17:36:00.000Z

Last Wednesday, the IFI decamped to the Mecca of the GAA, Croke Park, for the launch of our second GAA DVD. GAA Football Gold features footage of the 1947 to 1958 All Ireland finals which have been preserved by the IFI Irish Film Archive and is now made available to all GAA fans and anyone interested in the era. We were delighted that John Costello, Secretary of the Dublin GAA, brought a very special guest along with him, the Sam Maguire. Possibly the most popular guest of the day if the number of IFI staff and even the Minister's staff who wanted to get a photograph taken with the cup were anything to go by.

Bernard Brogan, Pat Giroy and Kasandra O'Connell (IFI)

Pat Gilroy, Dublin All Ireland winning manager and Bernard Brogan from the Dublin team made time in their very busy schedule to join us. It was fitting that since Dublin won the All Ireland this year, that they got an opportunity to pay tribute to the men that came before them, whose achievements are no less worthy of celebrating and recalling as the team of today.

From the 1955/1958 Dublin panels we were delighted to welcome Paddy O Flaherty, Jim Crowley, Mick Moylan, Sean “Yank” Murray, Cyril Freaney, Cathal O Leary, Norman Allen who suffered an appendicitis before the 1955 All Ireland final and could not play but still features as he is introduced as one of the linesmen before the 1953 All Ireland final, Johnny Joyce, who holds the record for highest scoring player in a single championship match and GAA legend and former Dublin captain Kevin Heffernan and my own father Jimmy Gray a sub in 1955.

GAA Footballers 1955/58 with Annmarie Gray and Kasandra O'Connell (IFI)

Amongst all these Dublin players, came a brave Kerry man, Minister Jimmy Deenihan who was delighted to be able to formally launch our DVD despite the Dublin centric nature of the event. He did assure us Dublin wouldn't win it again! He did however take the opportunity to take credit for Dublin's All Ireland win last September by being introducing the Brogan brothers' mother and father to each other. The GAA is obviously something that is close to the Minister's heart and he spoke at length and with great passion about the era, which included many successful Kerry players.

As someone who was born and bred into the GAA, I was delighted to introduce the event; Kasandra O'Connell, Head of the IFI Irish Film Archive also gave a speech detailing the work that went in to producing this DVD and the importance of our collection of GAA footage.

Dublin's All-Ireland winners Bernard Brogan (2011) and Kevin Heffernan (1958), and Minister Jimmi Deenihan

After the speeches, we watched a selection of clips from the DVD, including the 1958 final. It was great to see the former players point each other out, tease each other, and slap each other on the back for their performance especially as they were seeing the highlights of their final for the first time in over 50 years. In this era of DVDs, video recorders, youtube etc. it is hard to imagine that the record of such a significant day would be left to statistics, scorelines, a match report and fading memories. Nothing can replace the experience of seeing the matches again, to replicate the excitement, the drama, the heartbreak and the triumph. Due to the work of the IFI Irish Film Archive, these memories will never fade and the production of the DVD means that a new generation can appreciate how the game has changed and developed and can be reminded of past glories. It is a perfect Christmas present!

Profits from the DVD will go towards the IFI Irish Film Archive Preservation Fund.

Annmarie Gray

IFI Deputy Director

For more information on previous DVDs released by the IFI Irish Film Archive, including GAA Hurling Gold, Irish Destiny, Seoda or The O'Kalem Collection, please visit our website.

For orders and information on other DVD releases, please contact IFI Film Shop on 01 679 5727 or email: filmshop@irishfilm.ie.

Follow @IFI_FilmShop on Twitter!

The IFI in Washington

2011-11-04T18:54:00.002Z

The IFI has been working on a number of major projects in the US as part of Imagine Ireland, Culture Ireland’s year of Irish Arts in America 2011.

And so, as the curtain went down on Guests of the Nation; we raised a post-show glass to composers, foley and film-making artistes; snatched a very few hours of sleep and jumped on a train for our next engagement – a Ciné-concert at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.

This Other Eden: Ireland and Film

The concert was to be the climax of This Other Eden: Ireland and Film, a film series which ran in the National Gallery between Aug 27^th and Sep 25^th. Curated by IFI International alongside Peggy Parsons – one of the most highly regarded film curators in the US – the film series looked at the relationship between storytelling, literature and real life as refracted in the kaleidoscope of Irish fiction and non-fiction film.

Ross Keane, Sarah Glennie and I arrived somewhat bleary eyed in the nation’s capital but soon rallied as we marvelled at its grandeur, at the spakling white government buildings and the tree-lined mall stretching away as far as the eye could see – a relief after the hustle and bustle of New York.

Our first appointment was at the Irish Embassy in Washington where Kevin Conmy, Deputy Chief of Mission hosted a reception (coordinated by Deirdre Bourke and Noreen Hallinan) celebrating the success of the film series. He welcomed guests of the National Gallery of Art, the marvellous Washington-Irish cultural group - Solas Nua; of Culture

Ireland

and of the American Ireland funds. Also in town were a group of Irish Military History Society members – over on an American Civil War research visit. The guests were treated to a foretaste of the full ciné-concert when Aran island fiddler Dr Aine Ni Chonghaile (on a fellowship in Notre Dame, South Bend, Illinois) accompanied by the short film His Mother (1912) to the great delight of all – particularly the military historians who, as a group, were probably least exposed to silent film and music presentations but who responded in the most enthusiastic, untutored fashion with great guffaws of delight at the film’s charming narrative.

Deirdre’s fellow musicians, all from Inis Oírr, arrived into town later that evening. They were gathered to reprise their performance of Aran of the Saints (1932) (premiered on the Aran Islands, Summer 2011) and to present a further three films with music performed as solo, duet and full ensemble pieces. On Saturday morning Deirdre, piper, Micheál Ó hAlmhain, his daughter, champion harpist Caitríona Ní Almhain and vocalist MacDara Ó Chonaola arose bright and early, starbucked themselves, gathered instruments (bodhráns, pipes, a Norwegian fiddle lent by Ms Loretta Kelly and a Harp lent by Washington instrument maker, Eric Kemper) and headed for the breathtaking east wing of the National Gallery of Art. A rigorous day of practise followed – rehearsals to date had been by skype - and now, after months apart, the team were to meet face to face to fuse their talents and create a traditional Irish soundscape for the films. After a hard day’s work we headed to nearby Fairfax Virginia where the serendipitously-scheduled Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann / Irish Traditional Music Festival was taking place – a chance for me to distribute fliers for the next day’s event and for the musicians to meet up with a handful of old friends and see some of North America’s finest musicians strutting their stuff.

We reconvened at the Gallery on Sunday to continue rehearsals and to prepare the auditorium for our concert. The auditorium is a beautifully appointed space – intimate yet with a 450 capacity. And then the audience began to arrive – a smattering of familiar faces from the Fairfax Fest; from the Embassy and from Solas Nua; and Kim Tomadjoglu from the American Film Institute. But more interesting perhaps were the hundreds of unfamiliar faces – regular Gallery attendees whose primary interest was in exploring new cinema, and in finding new ways of engaging with old cinema. It was fascinating to expose this audiences (with probably no previous significant experience of Irish cinema) to an eclectic mix of Irish material – films about a short-lived whaling station on Iniskea, a surreal travelogue from 1922 featuring the ghost of Disraeli and President William Cosgrave’s mother, one about a peasant fiddler and finally the Catholic Film Society’s precursor of Flaherty’s iconic Man of Aran - all this and real live Gaelic-speaking Aran islanders too!

National Gallery Curator Peggy Parsons summed up the success of the series thusly ….

“For the thousands who came to view the films (the total recorded attendance was 3,600), the series was both a wonderful eye-opener and a very palpable source of pleasure – surprising in terms of its depth, breadth, and novelty – with a coherent structure that afforded a concentrated view of Irish history, mythology and literature unlike anything else that has taken place in Washington in recent years.”

It was an honour to collaborate with this national cultural institution and to further the reach of our cultural exhibition programme through the support of Imagine Ireland – Culture Ireland’s programme of Irish Arts in the US. A most welcome outcome of the project is a heightened interest in and receptiveness to new Irish cinema in Washington and we look forward to an on-going programme of new Irish cinema at Solus Nua and at the National Gallery.

Sunniva O'Flynn

IFI Curator

For more information on IFI Irish Film Archive and it's recent IFI Irish Film Archive Preservation Fund campaign, featuring Saoirse Ronan, visit: http://www.ifi.ie/preservationfund/

Visit Imagine Ireland website http://www.imagineireland.ie/ for more information on other events featuring Irish arts in America.

November at the IFI

2011-11-01T17:37:00.000Z

Welcome to the IFI’s November programme and our annual celebration of French Cinema.

The IFI French Film Festival: Beloved

The IFI French Film Festival returns this month with a fantastic programme bringing you the best of new French cinema, and a chance to rediscover the work of some of its greats. We are delighted to be joined by leading figures in contemporary French Cinema: actors Sandrine Kiberlain and Jean-Pierre Darroussin, and directors Yves Caumon and Philippe Ramos. Distinguished critic Michel Ciment returns to the Festival for a screening of his new documentary on Kubrick and for a public discussion with one of our very special guests, distinguished director Claude Miller. This promises to be a fascinating encounter between two people who have done so much to define French Cinema and is not to be missed.

Film director Claude Miller

A focus for this year’s Festival is a special programme to celebrate the 60^th Anniversary of the Prix Jean Vigo. Established in 1951 the Prix aims to recognise directors whose work demonstrates a passion for cinema, a sense of innovation, and independence of mind – qualities associated with Jean Vigo himself. This visionary approach has ensured that the list of past winners includes France’s most distinctive filmmakers, and some extraordinary films – a selection of which we have been delighted to screen over the last few weeks. The programme continues during the Festival with the screening of previous winners and two films by Jean Vigo himself. We are honoured that Luce Vigo, President of the Prix and Jean Vigo’s daughter will be joining us to introduce the programme.

Prix Jean Vigo: All The Fine Promises

All this and 21 Irish premieres including some of the most celebrated titles from this year’s Cannes and Venice film festivals. For more information on the full programme see www.ifi.ie or the separate Festival programme available in the IFI. The Festival would not be possible without the support of the French Embassy in Ireland and we are very grateful to the Ambassador, and all our Festival partners, for their continued support of what has become one of Dublin’s cultural highlights.

The IFI French Film Festival: The Bird

The IFI Irish Film Archive is custodian of one of Ireland’s most remarkable resources – our nation’s film. Preserving and making this extraordinary collection accessible to the public is central to the work of the IFI and we have exciting plans for a much-needed new IFI Irish Film Archive Preservation and Research Centre which will provide the Archive with a secure new home, and allow us to grow and develop in the future. We are launching a major fundraising campaign to help us achieve this and a very familiar face will be popping up on our screens to ask for your help – please take a moment to listen.

The IFI Irish Film Archive

The IFI Irish Film Archive tells the story of Ireland’s cultural, social and political journey throughout the last century and it is essential we make sure this vital resource is there for future generations. Your help with this is very much appreciated.

Sarah Glennie

Director

For more information and bookings, visit the IFI French Film Festival website (http://www.irishfilm.ie/french2011).

Join the conversation on Twitter - use #IFIFrench and follow @IFI_Dub or find us on Facebook/IrishFilmInstitute for Festival updates, news and ticket competitions!

DVD: GAA Football Gold

2011-10-28T14:45:00.004+01:00

Yes it's that time of the year again and the IFI Irish Film Archive is ready to press go on its latest GAA DVD release: GAA Football Gold.

Following the incredible success of last year's release of hurling highlights from the '40s and '50s (it was one of the biggest selling sport DVDs last year), we have put together a fantastic package for Gaelic football fans, which covers the period 1947-1959. The 1947 match was the first one filmed for cinema audiences and was played between Cavan and Kerry in the New York Polo Grounds, home of the NY Giants baseball team. As it has rarely been seen, we were delighted to have been given permission to include it on this DVD and share it with current Gaelic games fans.

1947: Kerry vs. Cavan

The All Ireland Football Finals were routinely filmed by the National Film Institute (before it was renamed the Irish Film Institute) from 1948 onwards and generally lasted 10-20 minutes. In addition to highlights of the senior and minor games, the films showed the build-up to the match and the players in training, and generally had a tongue-in-cheek newsreel quality. Over the last few months, the IFI Irish Film Archive staff has been painstakingly assessing the sound and picture elements of GAA film material held in our vaults, selecting the best quality elements and transferring them to a digital format ready for publishing on DVD. As with our other DVD releases, considerable time and effort has also been spent producing an accompanying booklet full of interesting images of the matches and crowds, with illuminating liner notes provided by Dr. Seán Crosson.

GAA fans will be fascinated by the footage of legendary football stars of the '40s and '50s in action, but there is much in this collection to interest the general public: there is tremendous footage of Dublin supporters, some in drag, making their way to Croke Park by pony and trap in 1958, and spectators on the roofs of the stands & children sitting behind the goal posts, in the days before health and safety spoiled the fun. Other note worthy footage is the cameramen getting ready to film in 1957, groundsman Jimmy Curran preparing the pitch in 1947 and Micheal O'Heir gives a rousing commentary throughout. Dublin fans will relish their county's win in 1958, which is reminiscent of their recent glorious victory, but the geographical spread is wide with Meath, Cork, Louth, Derry, Cavan, Mayo, Armagh and Galway all featured.

The DVD will hit the shops from November 9th and will be available of the IFI website and from IFI Film Shop, keep checking our website for further details.

Kasandra O'Connell
Head of IFI Irish film Archive

For more information on previous DVDs released by the IFI Irish Film Archive, including GAA Gold, Irish Destiny, Seoda or The O'Kalem Collection, please visit our website.

For orders and information on other DVD releases, please contact IFI Film Shop on 01 679 5727 or email: filmshop@irishfilm.ie.

Follow @IFI_FilmShop on Twitter!

The Glamour of Awards

2011-10-28T11:49:00.000+01:00

The IFI reigned victorious last night as we picked up the gong for Dublin Cinema of the Year at the Dublin Living Awards.

Ross Keane and Annmarie Gray picking up the Award

We were delighted be nominated for two awards at the Dublin Living Awards last night: Dublin Cinema of the Year and Dublin Café of the Year. So Annmarie Gray and I trekked up to the Mansion House, decked out in our finest garb, ready for a night of anticipation and excitement!

It was certainly a glamourous affair as Dublin's nominated organisations dressed up to the nines. Presidential hopeful David Norris got a standinng ovation as he arrived in, nominated (and then the winner) for Dubliner of the Year.

We unfortunately lost out to Insomnia for Dublin Café of the Year, so we were then pinning all our hopes on our second nomination. We were delighted when our names were called out as winners of the Dublin Cinema of the Year Award, and the rapturous response we got from the audience indicated that the IFI was a very popular choice. Annmarie and I made our way to the stage for the official photo, but we were spared from doing our finest Gwenyth Paltrow Oscar speech impression, as the organisers decided on a no-speech policy to keep the whole night running as smoothly as possible, thereby saving the audience from having to endure any gushing acceptance speeches. We'll just have to save that speech for the Oscars some day...

So, given that we didn't get to say it last night, many thanks to everyone who voted for us across our two nominated categories. It really does mean a lot to us and we were thrilled to be crowned Dublin Cinema of the Year. We pride ourselves at the IFI on delivering a truly unique programme of activities, giving audiences the opportunity to see films here that they simply would not otherwise see. So this award is a ringing endorsement from Dublin's cinemagoers of the work that we do.

Thanks again and here's to retaining the crown next year!

Ross Keane
Public Affairs & Marketing Director

IFI Horrorthon 2011… The Return

2011-10-24T17:00:00.000+01:00

Let’s elaborate further upon the highlights of this year’s IFI Horrorthon programme, for the week that’s in it: IFI Horrorthon 2011 kicks off this Thursday, running through the weekend to our very favourite day of the year… Who doesn’t love Halloween?

I’d like to begin with a simple, searching query: what’s your favourite scary movie? It’s the mantra proffered by the killer in Wes Craven’s original Scream, and a highly subjective poser indeed: the finest shock cinema, after all, taps directly into our deepest, darkest places, enabling us to tackle the fundamental fears that inform who and what we are.

It’s always been the case that horror cinema can act as a brutally effective mirror to the world in a way that any number of good-meaning but ineffectual prestige movies can’t. Any way you look at it, films like Hostel, Land Of The Dead, A Serbian Film and Kevin Smith’s underrated Red State say far more about the political brutalities of the last decade than multi-million dollar mediocrities like Rendition and Green Zone. At the alternate end of the spectrum, a decent ghost story always plays well; witness the spectacular success of Paranormal Activity 3, which just scored the largest US opening for a horror movie in box-office history, or Insidious, which is already the most profitable release of 2011.

Blow Out

What the IFI Horrorthon programme always attempts to do is juxtapose the finest new fright cinema with classics from a bygone age, movies that say something about their era – while still thrilling us years later. This year we’re dusting off Brian De Palma’s Blow Out, a masterful conspiracy thriller from the mad genius of the movie brat generation and one of the final farewells from the last true golden age of American cinema; it plays beautifully alongside our double-bill of ‘80s vigilante flicks, The Exterminator and Maniac Cop, reactionary exploitation flicks gleefully giving the (severed) finger to the Reagan era.

The Exterminator

Elsewhere at this year’s IFI Horrorthon, you’ll find Clint Eastwood’s seminal Play Misty ForMe, a proto-genic psycho-stalker flick that established the template for ongoing generations of copycats, most notably Fatal Attraction, and a 25^th anniversary screening of James Cameron’s masterpiece Aliens, a joyous relic of a pre-CGI era… Fact: the moment aliens started being pixellated, they stopped being scary. Then there are the classics that we dust off simply because we loved them as kids, and want to turn a whole new generation onto them, while geeking out at them on the big screen: we couldn’t be more delighted to present Mike Hodges’ 1980 ‘re-imagining’ of Flash Gordon (with that Queen soundtrack…) and Jim Henson’s stunning 1982 fantasy epic The Dark Crystal, movies that positively scream to be seen on the big screen.

The Dark Crystal

Thusly, we look forward by looking back. The ongoing evolution of the horror movie is a fascinating and unpredictable one: it’s a genre that (somewhat appropriately) constantly cannibalises itself in search of the Next Big Thing. Just when you think you’ve seen absolutely everything, you catch that unheralded gem that makes it fresh – and frightening – all over again. So make a point to catch some of this year’s fresh IFI Horrorthon discoveries – you can choose from Kidnapped, Snowtown, Rage, Rabies, The Hunt, A Horrible Way To Die, The TheatreBizarre and so many more. You’ll fall in love with being terrified all over again.

Derek O'Connor

Associate Programmer
IFI Horrorthon

For more information on films, bookings and special guests, visit the IFI Horrorthon website www.ifi.ie/horrorthon2011/.

Join the conversation on Twitter - use #IFIHorrorthon and follow @IFI_Dub & @IFI_Horrorthon!

Welcome to IFI Horrorthon 2011

2011-10-20T17:48:00.001+01:00

IFI Horrorthon is a labour of love, a Festival curated by horror movie fans for horror movie fans, and a truly unique event on the IFI calendar.

Every year, IFI Horrorthon brings you the best shock cinema from across the globe, and trust us - this year’s programme does not disappoint. Let’s be honest, here: Hollywood simply isn’t delivering the goods right now when it comes to cool horror product, having filmed every vaguely remake-able title imaginable and flogged existing franchises to a protracted and unpleasant death… Not that there aren’t talented young U.S. filmmakers out there: we’re delighted, for example, to be screening micro-budget indie A Horrible Way To Die from director Adam Wingard, whose next movie, You’re Next, is already being touted as the Next Big Sensation. Wingard takes the Mumblecore approach to the horror film, suggesting a whole new way forward for the genre – and we’re loving it.

Elsewhere, you’ll find splendid new work from the U.K, (haunted house tale The Awakening, Wicker Man companion piece The Wicker Tree, online cautionary tale Panic Button and the lovable Zombie Undead), France (urban survival piece The Hunt), Spain (intense home invasion saga Kidnapped), Japan (J-Horror teen flick Tomie Unlimited), Germany (underground nightmare Urban Explorer), Australia (slow-burning true-life serial killer saga Snowtown) and The Netherlands (undead Santa slay-fest Saint) – an eclectic smorgasbord of demented delights, and bloody good fun at that.

There’s much, much, much more: try a pair of demented anthology flicks, Canadian entry The Theatre Bizarre (directors include FX maestro Tom Savini and the welcome return of Hardware helmer Richard Stanley) and the unmissable Chillerama, a gonzo love letter to horror hounds from our old IFI Horrorthon buddy Tim Sullivan, who will be present to introduce the screening. Sullivan also produced a short film adaptation of Stephen King’s classic short story One For The Road, starring Phantasm hero Reggie Bannister and directed by talented Dubliner Paul Ward – we’re delighted to present the Irish premiere. Also doing the home team proud is the prolific Jason Figgis, who presents his latest feature-length documentary, a haunting tale entitled Cathnafola. And that’s before we get to the elaborate programme of scream classics screening at IFI Horrorthon 2011 – we’ll tell you about that next time… Until then, check out our programme online – and be very, very afraid of the dark.

Derek O'Connor

Associate Programmer
IFI Horrorthon

Join the conversation on Twitter - use #IFIHorrorthon and follow @IFI_Dub & @IFI_Horrorthon!

The IFI in New York

2011-10-19T14:48:00.000+01:00

It has been a busy year for the IFI as we have been working on a number of major projects in the US as part of Imagine Ireland, Culture Ireland’s year of Irish Arts in America 2011.

Guests of the Nation at NCH

We started in March with Hidden Ireland, a 13-week long programme of documentary films made in and about Ireland which was presented at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at the Lincoln Center. The programme opened with The Seasons, the extraordinary film from the IFI Irish Film Archive which documents daily life in a rural Mayo village in the 1930s. Harpist Cormac de Barra and musicians from Kila presented live musical accompaniment and the film was met with a very emotional reaction from the audience, which included Milo O’Shea and Angela Lansbury.

Hidden Ireland

We returned to New York in May for Revisiting the Quiet Man: Ireland on Film at MoMA. This two week programme, comprising 14 films, was curated by Gabriel Byrne. Gabriel took John Ford’s iconic portrayal of rural Ireland in The Quiet Man as the starting point for an exploration of representations of Irish identity on film, with titles ranging from Darby O’Gill... to Hunger. The programme was animated by some great discussions with special guests who joined us over the two weeks. Starting with Gabriel himself who discussed his love of The Quiet Man with Dr. Luke Gibbons on the opening night; Milo O’Shea made a surprise appearance to introduce his first film This Other Eden, and Jim Sheridan, Enda Walsh and Lance Daly all gave different generational perspectives on the extent to which Irish identity informs their work. Over 4,000 people attended the films over the two weeks and we were bowled-over by the level of interest shown by the MoMA audience in finding out more about Irish culture.

Revisiting the Quiet Man: Ireland on Film

Our final leg of our New York programme was a gala presentation and US premiere of Denis Johnston’s 1935 film Guests of the Nation at the Alice Tully Hall in the Lincoln Center on September 22^nd. The IFI Irish Film Archive has restored this extraordinary film and given it new life with a newly commissioned score by Niall Byrne. Niall’s lyrical and emotive music was premiered at the National Concert Hall on September 11^th with a live orchestral performance by RTE Concert Orchestra, and received a rapturous response from the 900-strong Dublin audience. The response in New York was no less ecstatic from an audience clearly moved by Denis Johnston’s stark but deeply emotional portrayal of Frank O’Connor’s short story, which is so enhanced by Niall’s music.

Guests of the Nation, NCH Dublin

The programme began with two short films by one of Ireland’s most exciting young filmmakers – Andrew Legge. Andrew uses silent film with a contemporary perspective, and The Unusual Inventions of Henry Cavendish and The Lactating Automaton provided a great sense of continuum from one of Ireland’s earliest example of indigenous filmmaking (Guests of the Nation), showing New York audiences the depth of talent there now is amongst Irish filmmakers.

The Lactating Automaton

Gabriel Byrne introduced Guests of the Nation, comparing the work of the IFI Irish Film Archive to those of archaeologists – uncovering and preserving Ireland’s cultural heritage and critically ensuring that treasure such as Guests of the Nation are not lost for future generations. This work is central to the IFI and we believe passionately that the IFI Irish Film Archive is one of Ireland’s most important cultural resources. Our year in the U.S. has demonstrated to us the power of the films we hold in the IFI Irish Film Archive to tell Ireland’s story to a global audiences, challenge perceptions of what it means to be Irish, and offer unique insights into our culture. Film is a powerful and accessible tool by which to communicate with both ourselves and a wider international audience and the preservation of our film culture in the IFI Irish Film Archive allows us to do this.

Gabriel Byrne introducing Guests of the Nation, NYC

Imagine Ireland has given the IFI, and many, many other Irish artists and organisations a fantastic opportunity to deliver programmes of real ambition in the States this year. Irish arts has had a very tangible presence across the States, raising awareness and developing invaluable contacts. Many good things will come out of this – the IFI is already developing a number of further collaborations building on the partnerships we made this year and we are extremely grateful to Culture Ireland for their support of a series of very exciting programmes for the IFI.

Sarah Glennie

Director

For more information on Guests of the Nation with a new score by Niall Byrne, click [here].

Visit our Flickr account for more images from the film premiere at the National Concert Hall, Dublin [here] and at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center in New York City [here].

Visit Imagine Ireland website http://www.imagineireland.ie/ for more information on other events featuring Irish arts in America.

IFI Education Programme for Autumn 2011 launch

2011-10-13T11:43:00.001+01:00

‘..just pay attention. You might learn something’.

Classroom mantra? Yes perhaps, but also a line from Inez, girlfriend of Gil, in the very amusing, Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen’s latest film which showed for teachers here at IFI on September 26th, to launch our Education Programme for Autumn 2011.

IFI Education Programme - Autumn 2011

In the film Owen Wilson plays a terrific Woody Allen, totally put upon by his brittle and complaining fiancée for whom his novel-writing is becoming less appealing by the day. Instead of showing eagerness to finely wine, dine and shop in Paris, Gil gets more pleasure out of walking the city’s streets late at night. Till one night through an amazing bit of time travel, he ends up in the company of some rather famous 1920s names. There’s Hemmingway, and he’s hanging out with the Fitzgeralds and Gertrude Stein. Alice B Toklas opens the door. Bunuel comes by. Someone offers a greeting to Trotsky. And so it goes on. One after another of Gil’s heroes crosses his midnight path, led by the luminous Adriana (Marion Cotillard) with whom Gil starts to fall in love. Of course in Allanesque ways it gets complicated, and that’s just part of its charm.

Midnight in Paris

Perfect Tuesday evening fare for our group of teachers, the screening was accompanied by a short presentation by Thomas McGraw Lewis, on The Industry Trust’s You-Make-the-Movies Campaign, dedicated to raising awareness of the implications of piracy on the film industry. The Trust are targeting young people through our Education Programme and a nationwide preview screening programme of The Help – based on the best-selling book will take place on October 25th.

IFI Education Programme Launch

Learning something about film is what we hope students can do through our programme. And we’ve a whole range of titles and events to facilitate this. A major tour of French-language title, Panique au Village, with accompanying studyguide by our former colleague, Baz Al-Rawi, will promote language learning. For students of German, there’s Neukölln Unlimited, the insightful and tense documentary about Lebanese streetdancers seeking asylum after long-term living in Berlin. This is presented with the support of Goethe Institute.

TY students can follow the teen adventures of 15-year-old Oliver in the quirky Submarine or get their F1 thrills with Senna, the gifted Brazilian racing-driver. Other challenging slices of life come from South Africa’s Life above All about 12-year-old Chanda or Cold War spy story L’Affaire Farewell.

Junior Cycle students needn’t feel left out - they can get out their dancing shoes for Jig, with Riverdance's Breandán de Gallaí to introduce the film.

There’s Irish interest also in our primary programme with a free preview of Dolphin Tale, the heroic story of the injured dolphin whose tail is constructed by an Irish prosthetics doctor and The Runway, about Paco and his Spanish speaking pilot friend who wants to get back home. Director Ian Power will be at this screening to talk to the young audience.

IFI Education Programme Launch

There’s lots more in the programme to support different aspects of curricula as well as information on our Teen Club which aims to give young people an opportunity to see a range of film they wouldn’t usually have access to, outside of schooltime. The whole programme is dedicated to giving teachers and their students a range of opportunities to engage with film in different ways here at IFI or at partner venues around the country. Dee Quinlan and I in IFI Education would like to know what you think of it.

But let’s leave the last word to Woody Allen. For the times when classroom events might take a surreal turn this term, it might help to recall this scene from the film:

Luis Buñuel: A man in love with a woman from a different era. I see a photograph!

Man Ray: I see a film!

Gil: I see insurmountable problem!

Salvador Dalí: I see rhinoceros!

Alicia McGivern

Head of IFI Education

Click [here] (PDF - 1.7mb) to download the programme.

For more information on IFI Education events, visit www.ifi.ie/education or contact Dee Quinlan (e: schools@irishfilm.ie, t: 01 679 5744).

See more photos from the IFI Education launch on Flickr [here].

Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris runs at the IFI until October 27th. For information and bookings, click [here].

Iranian Film Season Oct 8th – 26th

2011-10-07T12:20:00.002+01:00

Before revolution comes revelation. After comes realisation. In trying to understand the protests and demonstrations that shook Iran in 2009 we are faced with a number of questions. Social media may have provided us with documents of the immediacy of protest but little in the way of analysis.

This season of films provides background, context and meaning to the events of 2009. What links the films on show is their commitment to social justice, dignity, freedom, respect and equality. They are calls for reform rather than revolution, at the centre of which lies the complicated position of women in Iranian society.

Jafar Panahi’s The Circle opens the season and is a searing indictment of a society in freefall. Yet the overwhelming tone of despair and despondency evident throughout is constantly undercut by stoicism and quiet defiance. This is beautifully realised in a scene near the end of the film when a prostitute is being taken to a police station. Her resigned, defiant, sad and vacant eyes, a symbol of a fallen world in which all are implicated.

The Circle

This theme is continued in Offside which exposes the absurdities of a system that seems intent on trying to control all aspects of life. It provides a perfect metaphor for the cat-and-mouse game, the split between the private and public persona, and the muddling through and ignoring of rules that constitutes daily life in the Islamic Republic. Both films whilst lauded on the international scene (Circle won The Golden Lion at Venice 2000 and Offside won a Silver Bear in Berlin 2006) were banned in Iran.

Equally as controversial, similarly lauded abroad, yet screened in Iran, (becoming box office hits in the process), are two films by Rassul Sadr Ameli, The GirlIn The Sneakers and I Am Taraneh, IAm 15 Years Old. He (an open supporter of the Green Movement who refused to have his films shown at the Fajr Film Festival in protest at the government crackdown) is no less a controversial figure than Panahi, yet his work has suffered less at the hand of the censor.

I Am Taraneh, I Am Fifteen Years Old

Part of the reason for this may lie in the fact that his films operate according to what might be deemed to be ‘more acceptable’ forms of social criticism. I Am Taraneh, I Am 15 in its tackling of a contentious issue such as teenage pregnancy does so in such a way that whilst it calls for the rights and freedom of the individual to be respected it could also be read to endorse official state values in its promotion of Islamic morals and motherhood.

Our Times

If the emergence of women in front of the cameras is startling then their appearance behind it as vanguards of a new and vibrant form of filmmaking is even more so. Rakhshan Bani-Etemad’s work reflects the contradictions of the Islamic Republic and its cinema. She combines deep psychological probing with a documentary infused style to examine pressing social concerns. Using the plight of women as a focal point she constructs a picture of a society where families are betrayed, mothers are abandoned and promises are meaningless. An active supporter of the Green Movement, OurTimes is a return to her documentary roots in response to the restrictions placed on filmmakers in their attempts to cover the tumultuous events.

This is a season of committed filmmaking that places cinema as a voice of critical conscience. It is essential viewing for anyone with an interest in Iran or cutting edge cinema.

Dr Eric Egan

Dr Eric Egan is the author of The Films of Makhmalbaf: Cinema, Politics, and Culture in Iran. He has written extensively on Iranian cinema as well as on Third Cinema, Egyptian cinema, Pakistani cinema and early silent cinema. He has recently contributed to the book Film in the Middle East and North Africa Creative Dissidence. He has taught film studies at both undergraduate and post graduate level in England and Ireland.

IFI's Iranian Film Season runs between October 8th - 26th. Full details of the films in the season can be found [here].

Attention: owing to the circumstances beyond our control we are unable to screen The Girl in the Sneakers, as programmed on Sunday October 16th at 13.20. This screening will be replaced with A Separation, a Golden Bear winner of the Berlin Film Festival.
For more information on the film, please click [here].

October at the IFI

2011-10-03T12:05:00.000+01:00

Welcome to the IFI's October programme: one of extraordinary global cinema, some very special guests, and a little bit of horror!

Lars Von Trier's Melancholia

This month sees the release of Ali Samadi Ahadi's moving and startling film The Green Wave, documenting the protests that took place following the disputed 2009 Iranian election, and to mark this we have a special season of Iranian cinema. Films from this troubled country have gained increasing international recognition in recent times, as demonstrated earlier this year with Asghar Farhadi’s stunning A Separation. This focus on Iranian cinema is growing both because of the strength of the work produced and the ongoing controversy surrounding the government’s treatment of its country’s filmmakers including Jafar Panahi who was imprisoned for six years and banned from filmmaking for 20 years. The season includes Panahi’s two award-winning films, The Circle and Offside, and Mohammad Rasoulof’s Goodbye, an extraordinarily moving and telling portrayal of the day-to-day realities of life for women in contemporary Iran, and one of my personal favourites from Cannes.

Offside

The IFI French Film Festival is coming round again soon, opening on November 16th, and we are giving you a sneak preview this year with a special programme of Prix Jean Vigo winners, starting in October and concluding during the Festival. Celebrating its 60th anniversary, France's most prestigious of film prizes is for young filmmakers, and the list of past winners reads like a who's who of French cinema. We have selected some of the best to get you in the mood for the Festival including Godard's first feature Breathless and Chris Marker's seminal film, La Jetée.

Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo in Breathless

We have some great guests visiting and special events happening at the IFI this month. We are delighted that Colm Meaney will be joining us on October 6th with director Darragh Byrne for the opening of their new Irish film Parked, and that Paddy Considine (one of our actor/directors this month, coinciding with our Stars Behind the Camera season) will be here for a preview of his startling directorial debut, Tyrannosaur, on October 3rd. Tickets for both events will go quickly so book early!

Colm Meaney in Parked

Amongst all of this, it’s Hallowe’en and that can only mean one thing: IFI Horrorthon! As ever, it’s back with a spinechilling and blood-curdling programme of the best of shock cinema, old and new. Prepare to be afraid!

Sarah Glennie

Director

A Western for people who don’t like Westerns?

2011-08-26T12:25:00.001+01:00

It’s never an easy task, writing a review of a classic and much beloved film. This is even more daunting in the case of High Noon - writes Sue Murphy, our guest blogger for The Western Season at the IFI.

Almost 60 years old, High Noon has often been described as the greatest Western of all time, one of Gary Cooper’s greatest performances and the breakout role for Grace Kelly who was just 23 when the film was released in 1952. Despite providing entertainment for generations there is no doubt that High Noon has shouldered the burden of becoming a symbolic piece.

Mid morning Hadleyville in the New Mexico territory, amidst burning heat and rising dust, three men ride through town. It has been years since their departure, the circumstances of which have not been forgotten. They ride towards the local railway station, leaving the town in a flurry. They pass the Justice of the Peace where a marriage ceremony is taking place between the soon-to-be-ex Marshal, Will Kane (Cooper) and his bride, Amy (Kelly). Just before they plan to leave the town to set up their new life, Kane hears that Frank Miller’s boys are back in town and Miller plans to be in on the noon train. Miller was put away by Kane and he promised he would return to kill him for his part in the arrest. Despite the scared townsfolk running for cover Kane refuses to leave town. As the time creeps closer to noon and with the train en route, Kane stands alone to face down his old enemy.

In the same breath as High Noon is described as the Greatest Western of all time, it has come to be known as the “Western for people who don’t like Westerns”. The bulk of the 84 minutes of the film which was aimed to be filmed in real time, concerns Kane’s quest to find allies. High Noon simmers before your eyes, both metaphorically and literally. The heat is visible on the faces of the characters, sweat pouring down their cheeks, while Cooper’s Kane is almost suffocated in his panic to find anyone to help him. The director Howard Hawks was known to have openly criticized the representation of the Marshal to which Zinnemann retorted “Sheriffs are people and no two people are alike.” There is barely any action, but the film does not suffer from it, rather Zinnemann proved his own point with an understanding of each character and individual that is rarely witnessed in the genre.

There is perhaps no need to fawn over Cooper’s role as Kane as that has been done since the film’s release by audiences and critics alike. (Cooper received an Academy award for his portrayal of Kane) It is, however, worth noting that he suffered greatly throughout the production with a bleeding ulcer. This didn't stop Cooper and Grace Kelly continuing an affair for the entirety of the filming. Many were considered for the role of Kane, including Gregory Peck who claimed it was one of his greatest regrets not taking the part but that he could never match Cooper. He carried the show, the hero of the hour who stood for his principles against not only an old adversary but a town who shamefully turn their back.

In hindsight, the production was dogged by controversy. Carl Foreman who had written the screenplay was brought in front of the House of Un-American Activities Committee and although he had no involvement with the Communist party for over ten years, he refused to divulge names of those who were. Stanley Kramer, his working partner at the production company they shared, forced him to sell his half of the company in case any association arose with the Communist party and their future would be destroyed. Kramer attempted to have Foreman completely removed from High Noon, but following an intervention by Cooper and Zinnemann, he was allowed to continue on his capacity as producer and writer. His producer credit was removed before release and Foreman became blacklisted by Hollywood in its aftermath. In its appeal to community values in the face of an external threat, High Noon is often seen as an outspoken critique of HUAC and blacklisting.

Zinnemann fought through his entire life to ensure that High Noon was only ever seen in black and white, and to witness it on the big screen in all of its glory in the IFI last night was a sight to behold.

- Sue Murphy -

Sue Murphy graduated from Trinity College in 2008 with a Masters in Film Theory and History. Beginning on Spin 1038's We Love Movies, Sue began reviewing for various outlets including the Movies and Booze slot for Sean Moncrieff and RTE Pulse. She has written for websites like Culch.ie, yay.ie and the Galway Film Centre. Sue now guest blogs for the IFI.

'High Noon' opened the IFI's The Western Season, which continues between August 24th - 28th. Tickets are available online on www.ifi.ie or from our Box Office at 01-679 3477.

IFI’s Staff Favourites: Mid-August Lunch

2011-08-12T17:14:00.003+01:00

Fans of Gianni di Gregorio’s Mid-August Lunch (Pranzo di Ferragosto) will be licking their lips in anticipation of his upcoming film, The Salt of Life. But before it reaches the cinema, it may be well worth getting hold of his first, much-loved feature, just to remind yourself of the delights that may be in store from this talented writer/actor/director.

Set in a sultry Rome over the August 15th bank holiday weekend, di Gregorio plays the middle-aged son whose life revolves around looking after his aged mother, Valeria, drinking wine and cooking. His weekend turns upside down when he’s imposed upon to look after the apartment block caretaker’s mother – in return for his waiving overdue service charges. Then the doctor’s mother lands in on them as well. Before he can open another bottle, Gianni has four seniors with varying medical and dietary demands in his charge. Ruling over the lot is Valeria, resplendent in full theatrical makeup and a towering wig. She’s like someone from Dynasty and indeed controls the home like one, refusing to give the guests rights over the TV or to join them at the table. At first irritated by their bickering and peevishness, Gianni works his way through several glasses of wine, moaning to a local ‘character’ about his fate. He escapes too, in the search for some fish, in a brief road journey on the back of a motorbike, where we get a glimpse of the kind of life Gianni dreams of. But once back home, he gets totally caught up, fending off drunken advances from Marina, and negotiating a way through their various demands.

With a lightness of touch in direction and a deftness in his performance, di Gregorio makes his middle-aged character appeal and amuse as he works his way through several glasses of wine and countless cigarettes. Watching this sometimes vacant looking character settle into the night and ultimately warm to the palm-reading and chat that diverts the women, it’s hard to imagine that he’s the writer of Gomorrah, the hard-hitting drama about organised crime in Naples.

When Mid-August Lunch was first released, some people said ‘nothing happens in it’. That’s true, but maybe that’s the point. In Gregorio’s screenlife nothing much does happen other than the day to day round of meals, medicaments, forays to the bar, chat and tv. And yet, on a stifling august weekend, for a brief couple of hours, there’s friendship, laughter and tenderness, among a group of women whose family had dispensed with them for other pursuits. By the end of the film, we’re dancing with him in that small overcrowded room, where for a brief period, the womens’ isolation and awareness of their mortality is forgotten. Treat yourself to some mid-august warmth with this gem of a film.

Alicia McGivern

Head of Education

IFI

Mid-August Lunch is available on DVD from IFI Bookstore. Salt of Life runs exclusively at the IFI in August 12th - 25th. Tickets on sale now at www.ifi.ie or 01 679 3477.

The Western Season 24th to 28th of August

2011-08-08T13:06:00.001+01:00

It’s time to throw on your most expensive Stetson, climb into those cowboy boots and grit your teeth in a way that Clint Eastwood would even be jealous of, because this month at the IFI the Western Season will be screening some of the choice picks from the genre.

High Noon

Although the Western has been pigeon-holed as the all-American film, The Western season attempts to look at the range of films that have evolved from the genre’s archetypal beginnings at the onset of the 20^th century.

For many, the Western conjures up the notion of an isolated life on the American frontiers in the late 19^th century, dusty towns with cowboy-filled saloons, where ladies were ladies and pistols at dawn was an everyday theme. As the genre matured Westerns developed and changed, adapting to political sentiments of the times they have been filmed in and the cultural outlooks of international filmmakers. Personally, Westerns are nostalgic, invoking memories of sitting with my father on a Sunday afternoon watching John Wayne chase Indians across the Prairie. Die-hard Western fans won't want to miss these films on the big screen while those less familiar with the genre will relish the chance to see some of the all-time classics.

High Noon

The Season kicks off on the 24^th of August with a screening of the now classic High Noon. Starring Grace Kelly, arguably one of the most beautiful women to ever grace the silver screen and the legend that was Gary Cooper, High Noon tells the story of lawman Will Kane, who on the day he hangs up his badge is told that Frank Miller, a man he put away years before, is returning to obtain his revenge. Kane soon discovers he stands alone after the townspeople he has protected for so long refuse to help and turn their back on him and his new wife. Scooping four Oscars and receiving another three nominations, High Noon has taken its place among the Western greats.

Rio Bravo

When you say Western, the name John Wayne will not be far away from your lips and the first of two screenings of the actor’s unforgettable performances is Rio Bravo. In Southwest Texas, the local sheriff must succeed in keeping a murderer in custody until the Marshal arrives. However, his brother, hiring gunslingers attempts to have his brother freed. Made as a political riposte to High Noon, the two classics provide some of the most evocative illustrations of the divides of the McCarthy era.

The Searchers

After Rio Bravo whets your appetite for more John Wayne screenings the season delivers with the timeless The Searchers. Wayne plays a Veteran civil war soldier who spends years attempting to rescue his niece from the Indians who ransacked his brother’s house and killed his sister-in-law who he desperately, but secretly loves. The violence of his passions simmer in the subtext and his love for a woman who can effectively never love him back will touch even the most hardened hearts.

Lemonade Joe

Proving just how much the Western had evolved in such a short space of time, Lemonade Joe, a Czechoslovakian take on the genre was released in 1964. 'Red Westerns' were popular in Eastern Europe, a favourite even of Joseph Stalin, they evolved a distinctly un-American bias during the Cold War. Masquerading as a comic musical while on the other hand, displaying serious political undertones, Lemonade Joe focuses on clean-living Joe who attempts to clean up a whiskey-drinking cowboy town. The film calls into question government, society and of course, your view on Joe himself... Lemonade Joe will also screen on the 27^th of August.

The Outlaw Josey Wales

For full listings of The Western including The Outlaw Josey Wales (another classic with Clint Eastwood both acting and directing this anti-war Western), visit www.ifi.ie. This weekend borrow a phrase from Gary Cooper in High Noon, “I've got to, that's the whole thing.”

Sue Murphy

Sue Murphy will be guest-blogging for the Western Season, August 24th - 28th at the IFI. To keep up to date with all the reviews and upcoming events, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and here at Blogger.

IFI Family Festival: Beast Hunt Results announced

2011-07-28T17:53:00.001+01:00

Thank you to everyone who took part in our IFI Family Film Festival Beast Hunt. Congratulations to Frances, Ryan and Charlie and everyone else who completed the hunt.

Chata © Chris Judge

IFI Family Festival Beast Hunt Results:

1^st – Frances 12.20

2^nd – Ryan 12.22

3^rd – Charlie 12.23

Other participants:

Tayler & Lara - 12.30

Elena & Jack - 12.32

Cian - 12.34

Jeff & Julia & Samuel - 12.35

James - 12.36

Keela - 12.38

Layla - 12.38

Mia - 12.40

Maya & Catalina - 12.40

Julia & James - 12.45

Maria & Liam - 12.54

Hugh & Rory - 12.56

Sarah - 12.58

Ashling - 12.58

Holly - 12.59

We would like to thank the amazing illustrator and painter Chris Judge for facilitating the workshop A Beasty Creation, and for his involvement in the Beast Hunt. As part of the IFI Family Festival, we screened his short film The Lonely Beast and Chris' illustrated book is now available at the IFI Film Shop.

We hope you had fun. See you next year!

IFI Family Festival Team

August at the IFI

2011-07-26T17:21:00.000+01:00

Welcome to our programme for August which includes a focus on films representing the Traveller community, a season of Westerns and the first part of a retrospective on legendary French filmmaker Alain Resnais.

Pedro Almodóvar's The Skin I Live In

The steady stream of strong Irish documentaries continues at the IFI this August with Ian Palmer’s Knuckle, a decadein-the-making exploration of the violent elements of Irish Traveller culture. Accompanying the release is a season of Traveller films that gives a wider view of the way that the community has been represented, from Joe Comerford’s debut feature Traveller to Perry Ogden’s fine examination of Traveller life during the Celtic Tiger years in Pavee Lackeen. There will be a chance to debate and discuss the cinematic representation of Travellers during a panel discussion with filmmakers alongside community artists and representatives.

Travellers On Film: Southpaw

The IFI Western Season demonstrates what a particularly highly contested genre the Western has become. Alongside popular political films such as High Noon and Rio Bravo, the season also includes a rare screening of an example of the once-popular Eastern Bloc Westerns (or Osterns). Lemonade Joe gives a fascinating insight into how the iconography of the American West was successfully adapted and reimagined to suit Communist regimes.

High Noon

Heritage Week (August 20th – 28th) is traditionally a busy time for IFI National and 2011 is no exception. The Kingdom and I: Kerry on Film is a programme of rarely-seen silent and sound films from the IFI Irish Film Archive which will screen at St. John’s Theatre, Listowel on August 25th. Elsewhere, Willy Reilly and His Colleen Bawn (1920) will screen on August 25th at the Pearse Museum, Rathfarnham, where the film was shot in 1920, and Dublin in the Rare Oul’ Times will return to the Dublin City Public Libraries network.

August has a packed schedule of new releases that include Project Nim, James Marsh’s hotly-anticipated follow-up to Man on Wire; In a Better World, this year’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner; and another journey into Pedro Almodóvar’s unique imagination with The Skin I Live In.

Audrey Tautou in Beautiful Lies

There’s also an exciting trio of new French films that include Kristin Scott Thomas in Sarah’s Key; Audrey Tautou in Beautiful Lies; and this month’s French Film Club selection, Eric Lartigau’s The Big Picture. We also honour one of France’s master filmmakers, Alain Resnais, to complement the re-release of Last Year in Marienbad. The season includes early masterpieces such as Muriel and Hiroshima mon amour as well as later films that consolidated his position as one of cinema’s most mesmerising and innovative storytellers.

Sarah Glennie

Director

Cars, rats and cupcakes... IFI Family Festival 2011

2011-07-19T13:55:00.002+01:00

Sunday afternoon at IFI, Dee Quinlan is reading subtitles of Short Tales, our Family Festival short film programme, to an eager and appreciative audience aged between 4 and 8 in the cinema. Outside on Meeting House Square, 20 young artists are waiting for the grand ‘opening’ of their mural, created under the guidance of expert visual artists Re-Ink-Our-Nation and inspired by Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams. As Diana Bunici, tRTE presenter and our hugely energetic and willing festival patron steps up to cut the imaginary ribbon, cameras click and admiring parents clap at the work their youngsters have put in to transform the construction hoarding. And what a transformation – a quick walk around the hoarding reveals their ideas on viking lives, future lives and what is important to them today. Realised as part of Temple Bar Cultural Trust’s Made in Temple Bar Festival, it’s been a great collaboration.

Young street artists and visual duo from Re-Ink-Our-Nation

Back inside, we’re just about recovering from having let a few beasts loose around Temple Bar, looking for The Lonely Beast, the character of Chris Judge’s children’s story and animation. Face-painting rules, with river rat whiskers sprouting on three-year-old faces. Said rats had made their first appearance on the banks of the Liffey with Diana, tRTE’s Stephen Byrne, and a handful of young film fans, posing and smiling behind beautiful painted boards featuring the Light of the River characters. The boards, painted by artist Li Aiken were a huge hit – with parents, kids and all posing behind them for photos over the weekend. Li turned her talents to the foyer too and, with volunteer Deirbhle, decorated the place with road markings, bollards and stop signs in preparation for Saturday’s Cars 2 rally - starring members of the audience in their own cut-out cars and waved off by Stephen in full rally mode.

At the preview of Cars 2

Volunteers truly got into the Festival spirit, and we really couldn’t have managed without the help and enthusiasm of them all –‘old’ hands Lauren, Gabrielle, Scott, Colm, Chloe were back for a 2nd year as well as newcomers: Odhran, who made the steps; Marina, Faye, Hazel, Eoghan, Kay, Michelle, Siofra, Rachel, Breffni, Veronica, Michael, Nicole, all of whom got stuck in blowing up balloons, facepainting, leafleting, minding workshops, running errands, tearing tickets and generally lending a hand - they were an amazing asset to the Festival. The street art was a huge project to manage, and this was made possible by the willingness and professionalism of our volunteer Sarah, who was invaluable throughout the whole event.

IFI Family Festival 2011 - one of the workshops

Back to the films, full houses for The Gruffalo and Cars 2, with appreciative and keen audiences for Light of the River, On the Sly and The Crocodiles Strike Back. We’d audiences from Donegal and Skibbereen, who travelled specially for the event, as well as new faces and IFI regulars, bringing young family and friends to experience some of the best family cinema from around the world. ‘Best day ever’ said Beibhin after attending Fergal’s music workshop. ‘Brillant’ and ‘Deadly’ were claymations with Estrella, ‘I’ll give it five and a half stars’ said one discerning viewer after the opening film. And for those who didn’t want a big screen, we set up a Secret Cinema too, with room for four viewers who could sit in the darkened room, with fairylight decor and cushions at their feet. As the lights go down on our closing film from France, On the Sly, stepping outside into the light and frequently bursting balloons, it’s hard not to think that alternative cinema has a great future here, if the openness and enthusiasm of this young audience is anything to go by.

See more photos from the IFI Family Festival 2011 [here].

Alicia McGivern
Head of Education

IFI Family Festival 2011 is on!

2011-07-14T16:26:00.002+01:00

Summer holidays too long? Then take your family to see some water rats, crocodiles, mice, bears and gruffalos this summer! No, not a long hot day at the zoo but a visit to IFI Family Festival where our programme of films from around the world tell stories about some wild and wonderful creatures – and humans too!

Light of the River

Starting with Light of the River, a Japanese animation in the Studio Ghibli style, with an eco-message too. It’s a funny and heart warming story about a family of river rats who are forced to swim upriver to find a new home. Many laughs in little Chi Chi’s adventures and the wise father’s endeavours to save him from sewer rat enemies...

In the Attic: Who has a Birthday Today?

From Ireland, A Shine of Rainbows stars Aidan Quinn and Connie Nielson as a couple who bring young Tomas into their coastal home. Great performances from young John Bell as Tomas and Dubliner Jack Gleeson as one of the local boys.

When wizardly adaptations have been eagerly awaited in cinemas here, in Germany huge audiences look forward to the adaptations of a very popular book series about a gang of friends who call themselves the Crocodiles. In this latest film, The Crocodiles Strike Back, the friends look like going their separate ways owing to job losses for some of the parents. So they set out to do all they can to stick together, even if that means breaking into the local factory to find out what exactly is going on. ..

RTE presenters Diana Bunici & Stephen Byrne

with young film fans at the launch of the Festival

Oh yes, several of the films are subtitled. But that’s not a problem as we have experienced readers who will read to the audience. And you’ll be surprised when you see how effective this is. Some people describe it as having a story read aloud. Kids love it. Speaking of stories, one of our guests - author and illustrator, Chris Judge - will present his own story, The Lonely Beast, on Sunday morning – before that very popular beast, The Gruffalo, hits the screen. And if that’s not enough beastly business, we’ll be letting a crowd of beast hunters loose in Temple Bar just after the film, led by our Festival Patron, tRTE’s Diana Bunici. Diana will be popping in and out of several Festival sceenings, workshops and events, introducing her favourite film and talking to audiences.

Young films fans at the launch of the Festival

What makes a film festival for young people really different is that it offers a glimpse into lifestyles and cultures from all over the world. None more so than in this year’s very special screening of Wind and Fog by Iranian filmmaker, Mohammed Ali-Talebi, in which ten-year-old Sahand is growing up in wartime. A wonderful film, beautiful in places and truly insightful into a very different life experience. From the other side of the world, Minnie and Junior features in one of our shorts programme, about two Aboriginal children. Minnie just can’t understand why Junior is more interested in fishing than her!

On the Sly / A Pas de Loup

Our Festival starts with the natural world and finishes there too: On the Sly (A Pas de Loup), showing on Sunday, brings viewers right into a French forest where six-year-old Cathy goes to hide from her parents and finds that living on berries, avoiding wolves and sleeping under the stars is quite an adventure! Fabulous performance from the young actor; a story about being brave, and knowing when it’s ok not to be.

We’d love to see you and your young film fans at the IFI Family Festival.

See some photos from the Opening Night on our Facebook Page.

Alicia McGivern
Head of Education

July at IFI

2011-07-07T14:42:00.000+01:00

July looks set to be an extraordinary month of three special directors’ seasons and our annual IFI Family Festival. It’s going to be busy!

Apichatpong Weerasethakul is one of the world’s most exciting and unique filmmakers working today, and during July and August audiences in Dublin will have the opportunity to fully immerse themselves in a major retrospective of his cinematic works at the IFI (from July 16th) and a multimedia exhibition at IMMA (For Tomorrow For Tonight, opening July 27th). Apichatpong came to the IFI in November for a special preview of his 2010 Palme d’Or winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, and captivated the audience that night with an eloquent and thought-provoking discussion of his work. We are delighted then to be welcoming him back to the IFI on July 23rd for an in-depth interview about his career with Dr. Maeve Connolly. This is a free event presented in collaboration with IMMA and one not-to-be-missed.

The Tree of Life

There are some great films out this month and prize winners abound. The much-anticipated 2011 winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, The Tree of Life, hits our screens and, to mark the momentous event that a new Terrence Malick film represents, we are showing three Malick classics: Badlands, The Thin Red Line and The New World.

A Separation astounded audiences at this year’s Berlin Film Festival (picking up the Golden Bear) and confirms an increasingly strong position for Iranian cinema on the world stage. Poetry was one of the most memorable films from Cannes last year, and is a powerful and masterful portrayal of an older woman’s struggle to find her place in Korean society; and the master of modern cinema Jean-Luc Godard brings us what he claims to be his last ever film: Film Socialisme.

Light of the River at the IFI Family Festival

The IFI Family Festival opens on July 14th, bringing our young film fans a packed four days of the best films from around the world, as well as workshops and free festival activities in the foyer. Art, music and technology group Synth Eastwood join us again for the opening night with a free spectacular interactive family event followed by the delightful, award-winning Japanese animation Light of the River. Other festival highlights include: A Shine of Rainbows, a family drama set on the west coast of Ireland; In the Attic, a beautifully crafted stop-motion animation from Czech animator Jirí Barta; Wind and Fog, a heart-rending film about a 10-year-old boy from Iran; and our closing French film, On the Sly, about a young girl’s adventures in a forest. Don’t just come for the films – join us for plenty of fun and exciting workshops, ranging from stop-motion animation, claymation and illustration to a large scale public graffiti art project and an interactive beast hunt around Temple Bar. Each day will be packed with choices for children of all ages. Check online for details of the full programme or pick up one of the festival programmes in the IFI.

And, finally, we are delighted to welcome back GAZE International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival with a special Fassbinder season presented in collaboration with the IFI.

Weerasethakul, Fassbinder and Malick all in one month – only at the IFI!

Sarah Glennie
Director

The IFI at MOMA May 20 – June 2nd

2011-06-30T11:19:00.001+01:00

The IFI has now returned to Dublin from New York after a great two weeks at MoMA presenting the film series Revisiting the Quiet Man: Ireland on Film which we curated with Gabriel Byrne.

The two week programme brought MoMA audiences on a journey through a rich and diverse selection of representations of Ireland on film; from Disney’s technicolour extravaganza, Darby O’Gill... to Steve McQueen and Enda Walsh’s stark and uncompromising Hunger. Each film in the series added a very different dimension to the overall question asked by Gabriel Byrne as curator of how Irish identity is represented on film.

John Ford’s iconic portrayal of rural Ireland The Quiet Man was the starting point for the series, with key themes in the film - an emigré’s sense of ‘home’, politics, religion, the role of women in society and Irish identity - informing the selection of the 14 other films. The programme began on May 20th with a special screening of The Quiet Man to a packed audience of over 400 in MoMA’s impressive Roy and Niuta Titus Theatre 1. The beautifully restored print from UCLA meant that we were seeing The Quiet Man at its absolute best – on film and with an audience – very different from most peoples' Paddy’s day memories of the film on TV. The universal response after the screening was one of rediscovering an old favourite, of fully appreciating the film’s greatness for the first time.

Over the next two weeks over 4000 people both discovered and rediscovered great films including In the Name of the Father, This Other Eden, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, The Magdalene Sisters, Kisses and The Dead. Many of the films are not widely known in the US, with some such as This Other Eden receiving their Stateside premiere at MoMA.

The programme was animated by some great discussions with special guests who joined us over the two weeks. Starting with Gabriel himself who discussed his love of the film The Quiet Man with Dr. Luke Gibbons on the opening night, and explained how he saw it as central to any discussion of Irish identity. Two great Irish actors made surprise appearances – Maureen O’Hara via video message to launch the programme at MoMA, and Milo O’Shea to poignantly introduce This Other Eden – his first film role as an actor. No discussion about Irish film would be complete without Jim Sheridan who joined us to introduce Darby O’Gill..., proclaiming this as his favourite film and Disney as a genius, and for an interview with Gabriel Byrne after In the Name of the Father. This frank and revealing discussion, between two people who have done so much to establish Irish film on a global stage, gave a fascinating insight into their motivation to address Ireland’s past in their work. In contrast Enda Walsh (Hunger) and Lance Daly (Kisses) both provided very interesting perspectives on how a younger generation of filmmakers see their work in relation to the legacy left by the first generation of international Irish directors, and the extent to which an Irish identity informs their work.

Milo O'Shea introducing This Other Eden

It was evident from the audience that, collectively, the films offered a unique insight into Irish culture, both historical and contemporary, and challenged previously held perceptions of what it means to be Irish. This is the power of film and the value of preserving our film heritage as it offers a uniquely powerful and accessible tool by which to communicate with both ourselves and a wider international audience.

Many of the films came from the IFI Irish Film Archive and our preservation of these titles creates a rich resource from which Ireland’s story can be told. One aspect of the project that will have lasting legacy for the IFI Irish Film Archive was the discovery in the MoMA archives of the last ‘O’Kalem’ film, Come Back To Erin, an extraordinary film made in Ireland in 1914 and which was believed lost. Thanks to a joint preservation project by MoMA and IFI, it has now been fully restored and returned to Ireland and the IFI Irish Film Archive for the benefit of future generations.

Sarah Glennie
Director

IFI Open Day 2011

2011-06-15T13:06:00.002+01:00

We survived the IFI Open Day 2011! With 15 free films on offer and queues running up Dame Street, this year's Open Day was another huge success.

Last year we decided to throw open the doors of the IFI with an Open Day of free screenings as our way of saying thanks for sticking with us during the major redevelopment we had undertaken the previous summer. When Cinema 3 was officially opened, we thought that an Open Day would be the perfect way to celebrate. The response to it was immense. Audiences came in their thousands and all tickets were snapped up within 60 minutes. The staff also really enjoyed the day, giving office personnel a rare chance to meet the audience and be on the front line. So when we debriefed after the event last year, everyone was in agreement that we'd have to bring it back again in 2011.

Shifting the month from February to June, and offering even more films than last year, the Open Day's lead programmer Kevin Coyne pulled together a varied selection of films that really showed the breadth of the ongoing programming at the IFI, incorporating strands such as IFI Family, IFI Stranger than Fiction and IFI Irish Film Archive. Audiences clearly responded to it as we had people queuing outside from a little after 7am to ensure that they would get their chosen tickets. First in line was avid cinemagoer John Egan, who was presented with an IFI Gift Voucher for this dedication!

Sarah Glennie with first-in-line John Egan

Such was the demand for tickets that the queue stretched from the door to Cinema 1, out of the IFI, up Eustace Street and down Dame Street, even passing the Olympia Theatre! Once 11am struck, the tickets began to be given away with Cave of Forgotten Dreams being the first film to 'sell out'.

Queue up Eustace Street

The day went by in a whirlwind with the foyer constantly busy with comings and goings as people attended the packed-out screenings. We also operated last-minute queues for people who weren't lucky (early!) enough to get the tickets they wanted. If there were any unclaimed seats a few minutes before a screening started, we made sure to fill them with our patient hopefuls! People were also taking advantage of the special offer on IFI Membership with reduced rates for IFI Open Day.

Queues on Dame Street

IFI Open Day offered audiences the opportunity to be the first to view many films that have not yet been released. We had special previews of Jack Goes Boating, the directorial debut of Philip Seymour Hoffman; Life, Above All, the South African film about a girl struggling to keep her family together; Cell 211, the gritty prison drama and winner of eight Goya Awards; the documentary Armadillo about Danish soldiers in Afghanistan; and the Irish film Sensation which was introduced by its stars Domhnall Gleeson and Kelly Campbell.

Aislinn Ni Uallachain and Mark Byrne get their free tickets

We also had some great classics on offer. IFI Education's Dee Quinlan introduced the IFI Family film Labyrinth featuring David Bowie's Goblin King; Cinemas Manager Peter Walsh introduced two of his favourites - cult film The Honeymoon Killers and Godard's Pierrot le fou; comedian John Colleary, a big Marx Brothers' fan, spoke about A Night at the Opera; Head of Education Alicia McGivern told audiences why she considered Donnie Darko to be the best film on offer at the Open Day; Director of the Kilruddery Film Festival, Daniel Fitzpatrick, discussed F.W. Murnau's silent classic Sunrise; while IFI Curator and author Lee Dunne introduced the IFI Irish Film Archive's slot, the controversial-at-the-time and rarely seen I Can't . . . I Can't.

The day closed out with two popular films. Cave of Forgotten Dreams, a recent hit at the IFI, was brought back for one more outing and introduced by Professor of Archaeology at UCD Muiris O Suilleabhain who is an expert on prehistoric art.

Submarine

Our other popular film was very divisive amongst IFI staff! The Audience Choice screening... In the weeks leading up to the Open Day, IFI staff all selected their favourite three films of the past twelve months. This list was then compiled into a shortlist for the public to vote for their favourite in an online poll. Different staff members championed their favourite films in short online entries to try to garner support for their own choices, which resulted in a closely fought battle! We're all back on speaking terms now, but Head of IFI Irish Film Archive Kasandra O'Connell emerged victorious (after an exhaustive Twitter campaign!) with her choice Submarine. She happily gloated about her victory in her introduction to the film on Saturday night in Cinema 1!

All in all the day was a great success. Huge numbers poured through our doors and we were delighted to be able to throw open the IFI for free to the public once again.

All the staff put in trojan work to make the day run as smoothly as possible, from the programmers to the café bar staff dealing with the hungry (and thirsty!) masses, to the box office staff who had some considerable crowd management to oversee! And not forgetting the huge numbers of office staff who offered up their sacred Saturdays to come in and help out.

We hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did!

Ross Keane

Public Affairs & Marketing Director

A Cut Above - The Virtues of 'Cutter's Way'

2011-06-10T17:25:00.001+01:00

Peter Walsh extols the virtues of Ivan Passer’s early 1980s masterpiece Cutter’s Way, which is showing in a restored digital version to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its first release.

People who suspect the Academy Awards are little more than a sham in terms of rewarding real artistic achievement need look no further than the case of Cutter’s Way, one of the most remarkable American movies of the 1980s, which didn’t receive a single Oscar nomination on its release in 1981. The neglect is all the more telling in that the film is no self-indulgent, auteur-driven piece but represents one of those rare and lucky occasions when all the elements fell into place to create a great movie. Indeed, such is the quality of work on display in every department that the lack of recognition in any single category seems perverse in the extreme.

John Heard

The film begins with the advantage of being adapted from an outstanding 1976 novel, Cutter and Bone, by Newton Thornberg, himself an underrated figure in modern American literature whose work is only now receiving wider acclaim. Thornberg’s crime story provides a penetrating portrait of what George P. Pelecanos has described as “America’s festering wound in the wake of Vietnam.” Remarkably, it was written at the time of the war and thus without the benefit of hindsight. More remarkable still is that the film actually improves on the novel in many respects, and credit must go to screenwriter Jeffrey Alan Fiskin and director Ivan Passer, neither of whose other work even approaches the brilliance on display here.

It opens in the style of a film noir, as Richard Bone (an excellent Jeff Bridges) discovers the body of a teenage girl in a dark, rain-soaked alleyway during the middle of the night. Although barely glimpsing the figure that dumped the corpse, Bone tentatively fingers the culprit as J. J. Cord, an oil tycoon whom he spots the following day in a Santa Barbara parade. Despite Bone’s uncertainty about the identification, his friend Alex Cutter (John Heard in a career-best performance) is immediately convinced of Cord’s guilt and becomes obsessed with exposing him as the killer. A veteran of Vietnam who emerged horribly mutilated with the loss of an arm, a leg and an eye, the embittered, paranoid Cutter seizes on the crime as a means of hounding the fat cats who got rich while others fought their dirty war.

John Heard & Jeff Bridges

There are shades of the conspiracy thriller in the film’s depiction of Cutter and his reluctant crew taking on the faceless might of the Cord Corporation. Just as significant, though, are the references to Hamlet and Moby Dick, since we can never be sure if Cutter’s pursuit of his prey is anything more than a personal obsession driven by delusion. Unlike the novel, the film remains ambivalent on this point, just as it refuses to fill in the background to the complex relationship between Cutter, Bone and Mo (an outstanding Lisa Eichhorn), the woman who loves Cutter and is loved by Bone. But this sense of ambiguity proves to be the film’s trump card and is played to devastating effect in the treatment of Mo’s sad fate. The long-suffering, alcoholic Mo succumbs to Bone’s charms, only to feel betrayed and despondent when he breaks his promise by leaving her alone after a night of lovemaking. We never know if Mo’s subsequent death is an accident, a suicide or a murder perpetuated by Cord. Yet the emotional impact of her demise is extraordinary and prepares the way for Cutter’s final assault on Cord’s mansion.

Jeff Bridges, Lisa Eichhorn & John Heard

The trio of characters at the centre of Cutter’s Way are amongst the finest portraits of disillusioned American outcasts ever captured on screen. An extraordinary creation, Cutter unleashes his rage in every direction before focusing on Cord as the embodiment of evil. Bone is an ageing beach bum who fears commitment, even where his close friends are concerned. And tragically caught between the two men is Mo, a refugee from the counter-culture of the 1960s who still harbours a few dreams as she drinks herself into oblivion. Beautifully played by the three leads, these all too human misfits are viewed sympathetically in Passer’s haunting movie, which also boasts superb cinematography by Jordon Cronenweth and a very fine score by Jack Nitzsche. To paraphrase Cutter, great art deserves a great audience, and this is brilliant, goddamn brilliant.

Watch the trailer here.

Peter Walsh
IFI Cinemas Manager

June at the IFI

2011-06-07T12:17:00.000+01:00

Following the success of last year’s Open Day at which 2,054 free tickets were given out to films ranging from Make Way for Tomorrow to Ponyo, we have decided to do it again! Put June 11th in your diary for a day packed full of great free films spanning the breadth of the IFI programme. Last year we asked you to select your all-time favourite film and the clear winner was The Lives of Others. This year the IFI staff have selected their favourites from the last 12 months for you to vote on (the list may surprise you!) and the film with the most votes will be screened during the Open Day. You can find the full programme online and also vote in our poll.

Later in the month, IFI National is staging a really remarkable project from the IFI Irish Film Archive at the Town Hall Theatre in Galway. Journey to Aran is a programme of films made on the Aran Islands from the 1920s to 1970s which presents a fascinating alternative to Flaherty's Man of Aran. The highlight of the programme is Aran of the Saints, an extraordinary silent film documenting life on the Aran Islands in 1932. As far as we know, this film has never been seen on Aran until this summer when IFI National will present it on Inis Oirr and Inis Mór at the beginning of July with a new score devised by musicians from Aran. The film has been digitally restored by the IFI Irish Film Archive from the 16mm original which is preserved in our vaults in Temple Bar, and the programme will be shown at the IFI in early July.

This project is just one illustration of the incredible work that the IFI Irish Film Archive does in preserving Ireland’s film history and finding ways to bring this extraordinary material to audiences in Ireland and internationally. Martin Scorsese said “Film is history, with every foot of film that is lost we lose a link to our culture, to the world around us and to ourselves.’’ This is something we passionately believe and the IFI has been working for the last 25 years to ensure Ireland’s rich and varied film legacy is meticulously preserved. The collection includes over 25,000 cans of film stretching from the oldest film in the collection (made by the Lumière Brothers in 1897) to the present day. The films represent an extraordinarily powerful resource that tells the social, political and artistic story of modern Ireland.

However, our storage facility has now reached capacity and we are reluctantly having to turn material away. This summer we are launching a fundraising campaign to enable us to build a new preservation centre at NUI Maynooth. It is of critical importance that this resource is protected and the IFI needs your help to ensure this happens in the face of shrinking public resources. Please give us your support.

Sarah Glennie
Director

MoMA Mia - IFI in New York !

2011-06-02T16:49:00.000+01:00

While President Obama was charming the Irish in Dublin and Moneygall last week, we were reciprocating in the US as we charmed New York audiences with an exciting programme of new and old Irish feature films presented at the prestigious Museum of Modern Art in bustling mid-town Manhattan.

The programme was the second in a series of IFI-curated film programmes appearing in New York this year, all part of Culture Ireland’s Imagine Ireland programme of Irish Arts in the America throughout 2011. The first strand was the documentary series Hidden Ireland which was hosted by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts earlier this Spring.

Gabriel Byrne

The invitation to present an Irish feature film programme was issued to us by Rajendra Roy, Chief Curator of the Film Department at MoMA. We were keen to select a programme that would surprise and intrigue US audiences, and would present new perspectives on old and new, Irish and American films. We were delighted then to welcome on board Ireland’s Cultural Ambassador, Gabriel Byrne, as curator of the programme. Gabriel brought a passion and a broad-ranging knowledge of Irish and American cinema to the project and, over a series of lengthy and involved discussions with MoMA Curator Charles Silver, IFI Director Sarah Glennie and I, a programme framework was devised which allowed us to whittle a programme of 15 or so titles from a starting list of hundreds. Revisiting The Quiet Man: Ireland on Film is a programme which is neither exhaustive nor chronological. It takes Ford’s iconic masterpiece as a starting point from which to explore other films which echo his preoccupations with exile and identity, women and the Catholic Church, history and politics. It asks “Who are we? How do we perceive ourselves? Who has created these film versions of ourselves?” Gabriel points out that, until a national film studio was established, we had to be content with other people’s versions of us: “we had no blank page to write our own stories on”.

Gabriel Byrne, Sarah Glennie, Dr. Luke Gibbons

The programme launched on May 20th at MoMA to a full house of Irish cultural enthusiasts and general cineastes. We opened with a warm and funny video greeting from the ever-beautiful Maureen O'Hara from her home in Glengariff, Co. Cork. This was followed by a sparkling 35mm print of The Quiet Man which jumped off the screen with its vibrancy and super-saturated colours, beautifully restored by the UCLA film archive. The audience's active enjoyment of every scene was audible throughout and their laughter not tinged with a hint of condescension or irony – just sheer enjoyment at Ford’s craft and capacity to entertain. The screening was followed by a relaxed and insightful conversation with Gabriel and Dr. Luke Gibbons (NUIM) about Ford and his yearning for an imagined home.

The following evening Loopline producer Vanessa Gildea introduced the international premiere of Dreaming The Quiet Man. This affectionate, insightful and illuminating documentary directed by Sé Merry Doyle considers Ford’s familial attachments in Ireland, his involvement in the struggle for independence, and presents a colourful cast of Cong locals who service the constant stream of cultural tourists and Quiet Man-iacs who visit the film's original locations.

Other early programme highlights included Milo O’Shea’s surprise appearance and introduction (with Luke Gibbons) to the rarely-seen, early Ardmore classic, This Other Eden, in which he features alongside Annette Dalton and Lesley Philips; a screening of Lance Daly’s Kisses, a stark counterpoint to Ford’s rural idyll, followed by Q&A with Lance and David Kwok ( Director of Programming at Tribeca Film Festival where Lance’s new film The Good Doctor recently screened); Jim Sheridan’s introduction to one of his favourite films, Disney’s Darby O'Gill and the Little People, and his marathon conversation with Gabriel after In the Name of the Father (directed by one, executive produced by the other); and the lively interview with Gabriel with Enda Walsh after the screening of Hunger.

In the Name of the Father

Still to come on June 1st is a programme of silent films: Lad From Old Ireland (1910), Come On Over (1928), and Come Back to Erin (1912), the last being a lively emigrant drama from the Kalem canon, filmed in Killarney and Queenstown in 1912, believed lost until we identified an over-looked negative at MoMA in the course of researching this season. The programme will be presented with traditional piano accompaniment from Ben Model and, probably for the first time ever, with live uileann piping from New York-based Irish player Ivan Goff. I’m particularly sorry to miss this one – it will be a magical experience – both for the music and for the unveiling of the lost Kalem classic now restored by MoMA with support from IFI and Culture Ireland’s Imagine Ireland programme which has made all of our New York endeavours possible. Do tell all your Irish and film-loving friends in New York to go along for this, possibly once-in-a- lifetime experience – Uileann Pipes in the Museum of Modern Art!!!

Sunniva O’Flynn

Curator

Irish Film Institute

Film Focus Youth Discussion Event

2011-05-06T14:36:00.000+01:00

A couple of weeks ago here at IFI, 14 young keen film enthusiasts came together to participate in a discussion entitled, ‘What does film mean to you’?

Participants were recruited through our monthly IFI Teen Film Club, which is aimed at teenagers, aged 15-18, from all over Dublin. The Film Club aims to provide participants with greater access to alternative films and world cinema through various screenings and discussion groups.

The basis of this discussion grew from our current Film Focus research project, which is now in its second year. Film Focus is a project initiated by the Irish Film Institute (IFI) in conjunction with the Irish Film Board (IFB) to develop a national strategy for film and moving image education in Ireland.

One of the main aims of this research is to provide a range of opportunities for young people to access cultural cinema and aspects of film education. It is therefore essential that young people are involved in our research and given a platform to speak openly and share their thoughts about film and film education.

The Culture Box kindly provided the space for the discussion and its location within Temple Bar was ideal for those attending the selected film club screening, Submarine, later on that day.

The event was facilitated by Alan King (NAYD) and participants ranged from our regular club attendees to first timers. Various activities were used as a stimulus for discussion and participants openly contributed their thoughts and opinions throughout the session. Examples of films that we currently have on our schools programme, Billy Elliot, Inception and Persepolis, were screened and used as a tool to encourage further discussion around media literacy and their place in education. Provocative statements, such as, ‘Watching a film on a topic is as useful as reading a book’ and ‘Film is a very relevant art form for young people’ were strongly debated amongst the participants and as the session came to an end we found it difficult to tear them away from their ‘platform’!

Interestingly, all of the group participants stressed the importance of the social aspect and educational value of watching films. "…it helps people learn and it brings people together...","... it’s a way to escape from reality, a social event, a way to express who you are...". It was at this point that the conversation came to an end and participants left for the IFI to join other teen film club members who were making their way into cinema 1 to watch Submarine.

‘What does film mean to you’? is a complex question for anyone to answer. The participants approached it with great enthusiasm and worked together to deliver their opinions, which are invaluable to our research.

Dee Quinlan
IFI Education Officer

For more information about the IFI Teen Film Club please contact Dee by phone on (01) 679 5744 or email.
For more information about Film Focus please contact Alicia McGivern by phone on (01) 6755744 or email.

The Fourth Wall

2011-05-05T14:14:00.000+01:00

Where else can you see Wim Wenders, Rem Koolhaas, Archigram, Tati and Jem Cohen on the same screen in one season? Today kicks-off The Fourth Wall at the IFI, Ireland’s first-ever film and architecture season.

The Fourth Wall is the first installment of a series of curated events by the Irish Architecture Foundation, which celebrates the most expressive of unions – that of architecture and film.

19th century theatre radicalised viewer experience by dissolving the boundary between the stage and audience. Now, in the 20th and 21st centuries, cinema is wholly reimagining how we experience and understand architecture. Architecture – buildings, sites, cities and landscapes – is most commonly exhibited on the wall of a gallery or museum. In The Fourth Wall, the vertical gallery space transforms into the screen. What was finite now channels the infinite, narrative, and responsive. Released from the gallery wall, architecture transcends its role as a mute subject and becomes a protagonist, an active participant within the fabric of filmmaking.

Koolhaas Houselife

Many of The Fourth Wall screenings are exclusive to this season. Expect to see alternative readings of well-known buildings from surprising and unanticipated voices, such as Ursula Mayer’s portrait of architect Erno Goldfinger in Interiors and Denis Postle’s critique of the Pompidou Centre by Cedric Price and Archigram in Beaubourg. A special feature is Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoîne’s critically acclaimed Koolhaas Houselife. On Saturday, May 7th, the filmmakers will attend the screening in person and will take part in a Q&A. The screening will also be followed by a rarely seen 10-minute filmed interview with Rem Koolhaas.

Other selections challenge our preconceptions about the role that architecture and the built environment plays within economics and nationhood. Another rarely shown feature is Patrick Keiller’s elegant factual essay and social comment A Dilapidated Dwelling. This film is especially germane to the context of post-Celtic Tiger Ireland. Keiller’s talent lies in his sensitive yet provocative exploration of the conflict between new and old forms of architecture. This is also embraced – although from an all-together different perspective – by Jacques Tati in his fictional comedy Mon Oncle, which offers a pointed critique of post war modernism. Furthermore, Lisa Godson (GradCam/NCAD) and Sunniva O’Flynn (IFI) have curated Dublin: Sean agus Nua, from the IFI Irish Film Archive. Another feature that casts a city as the main actor is Los Angeles Plays Itself by Thom Andersen.

If Buildings Could Talk

The theme of public space continues in Chain by Jem Cohen, a director who has reached cult status through his deft photo-collages that combine fiction and documentary to chronicle the urban environment. Another Irish premiere is If Buildings Could Talk by one of the greatest living film-makers, Wim Wenders. This is where the 3D capability of film and the dimensionality of architecture align, giving you a ‘virtual-real’ experience of a building. The Fourth Wall has been given special permission to screen If Buildings Could Talk. This will be your only opportunity to see it in Ireland.

For further details and booking information, please visit the IFI website.
Nathalie Weadick
Director + Curator Irish Architecture Foundation

&
Samantha Martin-McAuliffe
UCD School of Architecture

May at the IFI and beyond...

2011-05-04T17:19:00.000+01:00

The IFI is delighted to be collaborating with MoMA in New York to present Revisiting The Quiet Man: Ireland on Film, as part of Imagine Ireland: Culture Ireland’s Year of Irish Arts in America 2011. Curated by Gabriel Byrne, this special series of 14 films takes The Quiet Man, John Ford’s iconic vision of 1950s' Ireland, as a starting point for an exploration of representations of Ireland on film from 1910 to 2010. The programme, which provides a new context for U.S.-Irish “classics”, will also include a selection of recently discovered U.S.-Irish emigrant films from the 1910s and ‘20s; feature films from the early days of Ardmore Studios and several contemporary Irish feature films including Kisses, Hunger and The Butcher Boy. Aspects of this important programme will be shown in Dublin over the next year, including a recently restored print of The Quiet Man, which will be acquired by the IFI Irish Film Archive. Keep an eye on our programme or visit MoMA's website for further information.

The Quiet Man

Hunger, one of the most memorable and stark films about Ireland in recent years, will be screened both at MoMA as part of this programme and here at the IFI in May, and the film’s co-writer Enda Walsh will be joining us for both, taking part in a special Q&A at the IFI on May 20th to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1981 Hunger Strike so compellingly portrayed in the film.

The Fourth Wall: Koolhaas Houselife

We are delighted to be working with new partners the Irish Architecture Foundation to bring you The Fourth Wall. This fascinating programme, spanning from Jem Cohen to Jacques Tati, presents an intriguing perspective on the relationship between film and architecture. Moving beyond documentaries about architecture, the curators Nathalie Weadick and Samantha Martin-McAuliffe have selected films that are absolutely about or defined by architecture, and which reveal the intrinsic nature of buildings and our physical and psychological experience of them. A highlight of the programme is Wim Wenders’ second 3D film, If Buildings Could Talk, which was shown to great acclaim at last year’s Venice Architecture Biennale. Later in the month Build Something Modern opens for a short run following a prize-winning debut at this year’s Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. Continuing with the Architecture theme, this latest installment from Still Films (Seaview, Pyjama Girls) tells the fascinating story of the role Ireland’s modernist architects played in building Africa’s Catholic infrastructure.

The IFI isn’t just based in Dublin – throughout the year IFI National brings the IFI’s programme to audiences throughout Ireland and in May we will be starting IFI @ Triskel Christchurch in Cork. This permanent year-round IFI programme in Cork will bring some of our best new releases to audiences in the region, and follows on from IFI @ The Model, which was established last year and is now expanding its programme to more screenings each week.

And don’t forget, this month’s films up for discussion at The Critical Take will be Conor Horgan’s One Hundred Mornings, Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and Thomas McCarthy’s Win Win. Come along and tell us what you think!

Sarah Glennie

Director

Answer the Question! 'One Hundred Mornings' director Conor Horgan talks Q&As

2011-04-18T17:17:00.008+01:00

There’s one school of thought that says what an audience needs immediately after a film ends is time to reflect and gather their thoughts, rather than an opportunity to interrogate the director. But post-screening Q&As can be unexpectedly revealing, and are often a great way for both the audience and the director to find out a little more about the film.

We’ve just returned from screenings of One Hundred Mornings in Budapest and Krakow, where I found an unexpected benefit of doing Q&As abroad. The Krakow Q&A was moderated by Brandon Harris of Filmmaker Magazine, who knows the film well having first written about it after our North American debut at the Slamdance Festival. His questions were very much to the point, but being translated takes twice the time, so I had to be on my toes to get the most information across with the minimum of dialogue (which is also what I’ve tried to do in the film).

Kelly Campbell, Bob O'Mahoney, Grainne Humphries, Conor Horgan at JDIFF.

During the Slamdance Q&A I was asked about the films’ cast and mentioned that Bob O’Mahoney (who plays Tim) had a small part as a fighter pilot in the original Star Wars movie. Several of the male members of the audience sat bolt upright at this point and one informed me that were no small parts in the original Star Wars. If Bob has been receiving invites to fan conventions ever since, he only has me to blame.

Inevitably, similar questions come up. There's one in particular I get asked more than any other, naturally enough - what happened in the world of the film to cause the breakdown of society? I tend to respond, politely, that as it was a deliberate decision not to put this explanation into the film, I’d rather not offer one afterwards. What often happens then is that I get to explain why it was a deliberate decision.

Conor Horgan, Katie Holly and Kelly Campbell at Downtown Independent, LA

In Thessaloniki, when the discussion moved on to the societal breakdown, one very irate customer from the back of the hall started shouting “It could never happen here! Maybe in Africa, but never here!” Actually, I appreciate these kind of responses – when people are so exercised by the film, it has to have affected them. As a filmmaker this is the most you can ask for, and when it happens it’s kind of thrilling.

My worst ever Q&A happened at a festival where the screening system broke down and we had to project the film onto a huge multiplex screen from a DVD. When most of the questions were about what had actually happened in certain scenes, my heart sank – they just hadn’t been able to see it properly.

A much more inspiring Q&A was hosted last September by Ted Hope, one of the great indie film producers of the last twenty years, with credits on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Ice Storm and many others. After showing the film at his Goldcrest series of screenings in New York, one question in particular led to some revealing answers about the making of the film (you can read about it here).

Last month the film was back in New York for a week-long run, with the usual Q&A to follow. I wasn’t expecting the first question, which came from a young man with an Irish accent. In fact I was gobsmacked - he wanted to know what had happened to a couple of deleted scenes that had been in an unfinished version of the film. It turns out he was a friend of my brother's and had been part of a random audience for our only test screening, held in Dublin a few days before we finished the edit. He promised not to tweet about the details, and I thanked him for coming to see the film again.

One Hundred Mornings

Q&As can be a hugely educational experience - for the filmmakers. After all the work that goes into the making of a film, it only really comes to life when it’s shown to an audience, and a post-screening Q&A offers a chance to interact very directly with that audience, in a much more human way than via twitter or Facebook. I’ve learned a lot from doing them, and have loved hearing other people’s responses to the film – I hope the audiences have benefited as well.

We’ll be doing a Q&A on Saturday May 7th in the IFI, do please come - and bring your toughest questions.

Conor Horgan

Director

One Hundred Mornings

(Opens May 6th)

The Irish Are Coming

2011-03-24T14:02:00.001Z

The last time I walked out of Boston’s Logan Airport I was wearing a sheepskin-lined denim jacket and I have to tell you, it’s been a while since I’ve worn one of those. Mind you, I could do with one right now - it’s near freezing here, and the driver says there’ll be “a tickle ah snow” tonight. Meaning five or six inches.

I’m here with David Bolger, writer/choreographer/performer in Deep End Dance, a short film I directed of him dancing an underwater duet with his 76-year-old mother Madge. Madge is a staunch member of the IFI’s Wild Strawberries Cinema club, and unfortunately can’t make this trip (just to be clear, this is not for reasons of age – Madge can do anything).

We meet director Darragh Byrne and producer Dominic Wright at the baggage carousel. They’re here with their film Parked, which opens the Boston Irish Film Festival tonight. Deep End Dance will play before it. The lovely people at the festival have not only brought us all over for this, they are giving an award to each of the films at the opening ceremony. Which means I’ll probably have to explain what ‘chuffed’ means to an audience of bewildered Bostonians.

On Friday I’ll be getting the train south to meet my producer Katie Holly in New York, where our film One Hundred Mornings opens for a week long run at the Rerun theatre. Boy From Mercury director Martin Duffy is over and says he’ll drop in, transplanted Irish filmmakers Niall McKay (The Bass Player) and Paul Rowley (Make Something Modern) are already there. Paul is very kindly lending Katie and I some video equipment to shoot an interview next week in New York for Making a Show Of Myself, our ongoing documentary about Dublin drag icon Panti Bliss. The interview will be with Angelo, who was the other half of the celebrated drag duo Candi Panti (they were very big in Japan) before he put down the lipstick and became a Prof. Eng. Lit. in NYU.

Before all that, I have a day to explore the town. Via Facebook, a Bostonian friend in Dublin offers some tips, but if I take even half of her suggestions I’ll end up with sore feet and a distended stomach. One of them catches my eye, though - apparently Boston has a pretty awesome aquarium. There’s a multi-storey shark tank down the middle of it, and loads of Bostonians running around going, “Tylah! Tylah! Lookit the shaaahk!” and “Whoah! It’s a staaahfish!”. It sounds great, and I wonder how David and Madge would look dancing in it.

Conor Horgan
Director
One Hundred Mornings (Opens May 6th)

Part 3 of Neil Sinyard's fascinating talk on Woody Allen at the IFI

2011-03-21T17:07:00.003Z

Third and final section of Neil Sinyard's fascinating talk on Woody Allen at the IFI

Music, Madness and Murder: Some Reflections on the Cinema of Woody Allen Part 3 of 3

Like Orson Welles, Allen has always been interested in magic and card tricks and skilled at it: he even told Robert Benayoun that, when he was a boy, he planned to become a professional gambler. He plays a magician in Scoop and a magician/hypnotist is a major character in The Curse of the Jade Scorpion; and in fact, magic emanates from all parts of Allen’s world — characters levitate in Zelig, Alice, Everyone Says I Love You; Mia Farrow becomes invisible in Alice; a screen character walks out of the frame of the film he is in and into real life in The Purple Rose of Cairo. Ghosts appear all over the place, most notably perhaps that of Humphrey Bogart in Play It Again, Sam. In Annie Hall, when someone in a cinema queue is boring the pants off the hero with his loud views on Marshall McLuhan, Allen’s character can magically produce McLuhan from the queue to refute the man’s ideas and tell him he’s talking rubbish. At which point, if you remember, Allen turns to the camera and says feelingly: ‘Boy, if life were only like that!’ Which is the point, of course: it isn’t, and for all that the fantasy life of these characters — their imagination, if you will — is a liberation and release, sooner or later they will need to return to, or confront, real life.

This deployment of ‘magic’ moments is an element of Allen’s Romanticism and a way of exploring the tension between Fantasy and Reality, Art and Life, which is at the core of many of his films. It’s also a way of suggesting that the world might be stranger than it looks, or that appearances can deceive. Again like Orson Welles, one of the forms that Allen seems to like is the ‘fake’ documentary, that looks real but isn’t, as in Zelig, or the bits with the philosopher in Crimes and Misdemeanors, or the whole structure of Sweet and Lowdown, as ‘authentic’ witnesses recall an entirely mythical jazz guitarist with an ambition to emulate the great Django Reinhardt. Allen’s films often take you beyond the constraints of the real, temporal world into the realm of dreams and the surreal. David Thomson called him ‘a sad impresario of the bitter comedy of emotional hope’, but he can also be a lyricist of the imagination who takes audacious leaps into the unknown or the absurd. Even in a relatively matter-of-fact film like the recent Whatever Works, there are moments when the comfortable barrier between screen and audience threatens to break down and where the real and the mundane become close to the romantic and bizarre — like the very unusual first meeting between the elderly hero and his new romantic partner when she happens to be fortuitously under his second suicide attempt.

Love is strange; life is strange. One of my favourite lines in Woody Allen is that comment from Mia Farrow’s downtrodden waitress in The Purple Rose of Cairo: ‘I’ve just met a wonderful man. He’s fictional, but you can’t have everything.’ The whole film is in that line: what happens when a film character steps from the screen into the heroine’s real world; the theme of the tension between life and fiction; and a tone of wondrous humour tinged with melancholy, to denote the gap between expectation and fulfilment. The film has something of the yearning and ambiguity of Keats’ great Romantic poem, Ode On A Grecian Urn, where the lover on the urn is perfect but petrified: he can never age but he also can never reach his goal; but it is a reminder of the consolation that the dream world can offer in the face of bitter reality. When Mia Farrow watches Astaire and Rogers in Top Hat at the end of The Purple Rose of Cairo, having been deserted both by the fantasy screen hero and the real-life actor who has played him, we see her face gradually transformed by what she is watching as Astaire sings, ‘Heaven, I’m in Heaven’. Maybe she’s responding to a truth that lies behind Top Hat’s romance, escapism, and impossible beauty: namely, that art can, albeit momentarily, ease the pain of real life and indeed might regenerate feelings about life’s possibilities.

Still, I don’t think Allen has ever disguised the fact that, even in his comedies, his vision of life is essentially pessimistic; and indeed that his productivity is his main weapon for keeping pessimism at bay. As John Lahr wrote about him in an article in The New Yorker; ‘He is, like all great funny men, inconsolable . . . his antidote to anxiety is action.’ Even the magician in The Curse of the Jade Scorpion says: ‘The ugly curtain of reality will soon fall upon us.’ The world he presents to us is often despairing and violent: there are suicides or attempted suicides in, for example, Interiors, Hannah and Her Sisters, September, Melinda and Melinda, Cassandra’s Dream, Whatever Works; in three films where murder is at the core of the narrative — Crimes and Misdemeanors, Match Point, Cassandra’s Dream — the instigator goes scott-free, as if confirming the basic injustice of the Universe: crime is not followed by punishment. In Crimes and Misdemeanors, as Martin Landau awaits some retribution for collusion in murder, God’s silence is deafening: the phone rings and he answers, but there is no one there (he reminds me at that point of the murderer in Robert Browning’s poem Porphyria’s Lover, who has murdered Porphyria but then sits with the body waiting for something to happen, for some divine retribution: ‘And all night long we have not stirred / And yet God has not said a word!’). You might recall the last scene of the film where Landau encounters Woody Allen’s character, who’s in a depressed mood because Mia Farrow has gone off with his celebrity brother-in-law (Alan Alda) whom Allen despises. ‘I’m planning the perfect murder,’ he says ruefully to Landau who, of course, is the right person to ask; and Landau makes a kind of coded confession, being surprised by how little his conscience has troubled him: as in Match Point, we see the comparative ease with which the powerful in society can evade or escape the consequences of their actions. Knowing that the Woody Allen character is a filmmaker, Landau’s doctor poses his confession as an idea for a screenplay: ‘he finds he’s not punished . . . he prospers . . . he goes back to his protected world of wealth and privilege.’ And when Allen protests that if the hero of the story doesn’t confess, then it won’t work because there’s no tragic catharsis or just resolution, Landau replies: ‘But that’s fiction, that’s a movie . . . If you want to see a happy ending, go see a Hollywood movie.’ As a rule, Woody Allen doesn’t make ‘Hollywood movies’.

What does he make movies about, then? Well, basically, Love and Death: pretty fundamental themes, also pretty awesome. There are obviously a lot of sub-themes there: when I mention the theme of Love, I’m not simply thinking of the romantic relationships at the core of his films, but familial love, which is often complex and curdled: mother/daughter, brother/sister, sister/sister relationships where there is a lot of devotion and compassion but also seething resentments, hostilities, jealousies that have built up over a lifetime and which can — in films like Hannah and Her Sisters, September, Alice, Deconstructing Harry, even Cassandra’s Dream — suddenly boil over: I’m often surprised by how much anger there is in Allen’s films and how good he is at writing and directing argument scenes. The films he makes are about people’s emotional lives, generally set in a cultural milieu he knows: people who are civilised but discontented, who are affluent and intelligent but whose materialist comfort seems to offer them no guarantee of worldly satisfaction, who find love and fidelity so hard. ‘For all my education and so-called wisdom,’ says Michael Caine in Hannah and Her Sisters, ‘I can’t fathom my own heart.’

To quote the playwright Conor McPherson on Allen: ‘He’s one of the very few filmmakers who combine rare technical innovation with a disarming ability to dramatise the deep inner states that cause human beings so much complexity. Among his many preoccupations,’ he goes on, ‘is man’s inability to accept love and beauty in his life — as to do so is to welcome the attendant notions of responsibility and mortality.’ He cites the scene in Manhattan when Allen ineptly breaks off the relationship with the young Mariel Hemingway as the most poignant and painful example of that, where the latter’s unconditional love is the hardest kind of love to accept because it confers a responsibility on the recipient that can be hard to deal with and an estimation of himself that the recipient cannot accept. My prime example of this would be the whole Sean Penn/Samantha Morton relationship in Sweet and Lowdown, and the devastating consequences of the man’s inability to cope with the woman’s devotion, culminating in the moving final scene between them, when I suspect she misleads him about her situation out of compassion and where he belatedly realises what in human terms his selfishness might have cost him. Has Sean Penn ever done a more moving piece of acting on screen than in that scene? Has anyone ever chewed more pensively and poetically on a sandwich than Samantha Morton there?

Well, I will leave those tantalising questions dangling in the air, and bring this talk to a conclusion by reminding you of the ending of Love and Death. There are many of the things I’ve been talking about: the use of classical music (in this case, Prokofiev); the prominence of Death (he makes an actual corporeal appearance in at least three films); the anguish of love, or as one character puts it, ‘to love is to suffer’; the pastiche and parody of both a Russian classic and the cinema of Ingmar Bergman (allusions in this sequence to The Seventh Seal and Persona); and a final philosophical reflection on the meaning of life, which concludes that God is not evil, but an underachiever. He goes out with a flourish, literally dancing with Death, but the questions he raises about the meaning of existence are still being pursued more than thirty years later; and whilst Allen continues to average a film a year, we most assuredly have not yet heard his last word on the matter.

By Neil Sinyard

Part 2 of Neil Sinyard's fascinating talk on Woody Allen at the IFI

2011-03-21T17:04:00.010Z

Music, Madness and Murder: Some Reflections on the Cinema of Woody Allen Part 2 of 3

To coincide with the opening of Woody Allen’s You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, printed below is a transcript of the talk given by Neil Sinyard as part of last year’s Woody Allen retrospective.

Crimes and Misdemeanors

One of the things which gives the sequence from Crimes and Misdemeanors we have been discussing an unusual sheen and intensity is the music, chosen by Allen because he thought it a piece ‘gripped with tension’, ‘riddled with anxiety’. It’s the opening of Schubert’s last String Quartet, No.15, a piece of music Woody Allen had loved for years and which he thought seemed to fit that moment of the film exactly. To accommodate its inclusion, he inserted a line of dialogue which I think gives a whole new dimension to the sequence. There’s a moment where Landau and Huston have been together on the beach and he says her personality makes him think of Schubert (‘the sad one,’ as he puts it): she is to give him a recording of this piece as a present; so to hear it as a prelude then epilogue to her murder is particularly chilling, as is the string sound itself — if you didn’t know the piece, you might even be momentarily reminded of Bernard Herrmann’s all-string orchestra providing the ice-cold soundtrack to Hitchcock’s Psycho.

There are other things about the use of the music there as well:

a) it determines the editing — he can time the movement of the scene, e.g. her arrival at her apartment at the precise moment when there is a surge in the music — to fit the music, essentially doing there what Kubrick came to do in his films: instead of fitting the music to the editing, he fits the editing to the music.

b) there’s also a deliberate incongruity; a high-point of western culture is being used as an accompaniment to a murder scene, so there’s a disturbing counterpoint between a civilised surface and an undercurrent of violence, which relates to the characterisation of the doctor, an ostensibly decent, cultured and intelligent man secretly capable of collaborating in the vilest of human acts: what price, then, civilisation and culture?

Allen’s use of music in his films is highly distinctive and very unusual. Since his early films, he’s rarely used a conventional soundtrack score, which is one of the reasons why Philip Glass’ score for Cassandra’s Dream is so interesting: it’s the first orchestral background score to an Allen film for over thirty years. He uses classical music selectively but pointedly, rather in the way that Billy Wilder did. In my programme notes, for example, I briefly indicated why I thought the use of Erik Satie was a particularly well-chosen introduction to Another Woman (perhaps my favourite Allen movie). In Match Point, the hero’s deadly progress over the day that culminates in the murders he commits is accompanied over the soundtrack by an aria from Donizetti’s opera The Elixir Of Love. It irritated a lot of British critics who thought its use pretentious and distracting, but it’s worth remembering that it’s the main character’s love of opera that has initially propelled the plot and brought him into contact with the rich society he craves and which (like Landau in Crimes and Misdemeanors) he is determined to hang onto by whatever means necessary. The aria is there to express a mood — ‘A furtive tear in his eyes dawned / Envy those young people who seemed happy / What else do I search? What else do I search?’ — furtiveness, sadness, envy of the uncomplicated happiness of others, uncertainty of his ultimate goal . . . the dilemma of the hero in a nutshell. And I always think that that aria is what is playing obsessively in the hero’s head as he goes about his dreadful business on that fateful day: in a way, it’s like Visconti’s use of Mahler in Death In Venice — not so much external accompaniment as inner reverie, a subjective immersion in an internal state.

Elsewhere in Allen, the quotations from classical composers are legion: Bach, Beethoven, Mahler, Mendelssohn, Kurt Weill, Wagner, Grieg, Gershwin, to name but a few. The quotation is sometimes just incidental, sometimes more fundamental, but always very individual. Billy Wilder comes closest, but it’s not quite so pervasive; and, of course, Wilder comes from that European background and heritage which Allen doesn’t: when Wilder quotes Schubert in Double Indemnity, it has a very different connotation from Allen’s quotation of Schubert in Crimes and Misdemeanors. Typical of Allen, though, to underplay this, make a joke of it: ‘I don’t know much about classical music,’ says the hero in Stardust Memories. ‘For years I thought the Goldberg Variations were something Mr and Mrs Goldberg did on their wedding night.’

Stardust Memories

The driving force behind a film of his can often come from a popular song, which is used at the beginning almost like a Graham Greene epigraph as an intimation of the main theme: for example, What Is This Thing Called Love? for Husbands and Wives; You Made Me Love You for Hannah and Her Sisters; Cheek To Cheek in The Purple Rose of Cairo with its opening refrain of ‘Heaven, I’m in Heaven’. The narratives of Radio Days and Everyone Says I Love You are essentially driven by their songs. He himself wrote the score for one of his earliest films, Sleeper; is an accomplished jazz clarinettist who famously regards his Monday night jazz engagements in New York as far more important than turning up on Oscar night in Los Angeles to receive an award; his knowledge of popular song is compendious (again a link with Billy Wilder); though his particular love is of the classical jazz of the Big Band era of Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Woody Herman (from whom, it is said, he took his name — he really is Allen Stewart Konigsberg). It is significant, I think, that one of the great epiphanies in Woody Allen’s work is musically inspired: that moment in Stardust Memories, when the hero is listening to Louis Armstrong singing Hoagy Carmichael’s Stardust and simultaneously looks across at the face of his beautiful woman friend (Charlotte Rampling) and fleetingly experiences a moment of purest radiance and sublime serenity, the harmony and happiness he has been seeking. So music has all kinds of roles to play in his films — elegiac, nostalgic, idealistic, atmospheric, euphoric, ironic — and his deployment of it has an imagination and complexity to rival that of directors such as Wilder, Visconti and Kubrick.

I want to go back to the sequence from Crimes and Misdemeanors we watched and remind you of another odd detail. If you remember, at the end of the sequence, Landau is in the bathroom, no doubt still mentally washing his hands of the deed, when the phone rings: who can it be? Jack? There’s no answer. God? A reminder that he sees all? Or maybe just a suspenseful touch to suggest that, contrary to what Jack has said, this isn’t all over?

We never do learn who made that call: did he imagine it? It leaves us dangling slightly in mid-air — as if it might be some sort of voice from beyond the grave, something slightly unreal, even supernatural. It moves me on to another dimension of Allen’s work, which I have loosely termed ‘magic’, but which was intended as a broad term to cover the extensive element of fantasy, even the surreal, in his films.

End of the second section of the talk in three parts by Neil Sinyard.

Read part three here.

Part 1 of Neil Sinyard's fascinating talk on Woody Allen at the IFI

2011-03-21T16:48:00.007Z

Music, Madness and Murder: Some Reflections on the Cinema of Woody Allen Part 1 of 3

To coincide with the opening of Woody Allen’s You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, printed below is a transcript of the the first part of the talk given by Neil Sinyard as part of last year’s Woody Allen retrospective.

Woody Allen

You might not think it to look at him, but Woody Allen is a big subject. The critic Alexander Walker wrote that ‘it is a deception to see Woody Allen only as an American humorist’, and the French critic Robert Benayoun said that ‘his films spread out in all directions . . . the proof of him is to be found in his diversity’. These comments were made after Allen’s 14th film in the mid-1980s; they are no less true after his 40th film now, and it is this diversity more than the humour that is my subject today.

Woody Allen in Zelig

The persona has evolved and modified from its beginnings, from comic loser to cultural commentator; the cultural references have widened; he has done comedy films, serious films, and films both comic and serious (even with the same story). He has experimented with film form, with pastiche documentary and newsreel, media satire, use of split screen, subtitles to contrast outward speech and inward desire, chapter headings, direct addresses to the camera, and the dissolving of time-frames so past and present can be taking place within the same shot. There have been genre parodies, chamber dramas, Bergmanesque movies, Felliniesque movies, Renoiresque movies, comedies within the style of German Expressionism and Greek tragedy - and still he’s been criticised for being limited and repetitive. It’s why I quoted Roger Ebert in my notes and his amusing put-down of his fellow critics for their attitude to Allen: ‘There he goes again: doing something different.’ As with all the major film auteurs, certain themes recur and the particular social milieu he examines has been fairly consistent, but within that, the variety of subject and approach is enormous, and makes it quite difficult to talk about Woody Allen in total. There’s the Woody Allen of the ‘early, funny ones’; the more autobiographical (though he might deny that) confessional comedies; the American films, the European films; the films in which he does appear, the films in which he doesn’t; the present-day films as distinct from the period reconstructions etc. Even his choice of cameraman for different films is very idiosyncratic and personal: he’s had his Gordon Willis period, his Carlo di Palma period, his Sven Nykvist period, and so on. It’s almost as if a film like Zelig is his response to his critics: they want him to be one thing but, like Zelig, he is a man who cannot stop shedding his own skin.So, faced with that — and the time constraint of this talk — I thought the best thing to do was just to concentrate on some aspects of Allen that perhaps might not have been given as much attention as other aspects, recognising that there’s a whole host of other things that could be discussed; and I mentioned three things in my title for this talk — Music, Magic and Murder — though hopefully these topics will lead off in other directions as well.

Crimes and Misdemeanors

I’d like to begin, then, by looking at a sequence from roughly the mid-point of Allen’s career thus far: from Crimes And Misdemeanors of 1989. The title itself is a kind of literary pun: it invokes Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, not the only time in his career when Allen will invoke Dostoyevsky: indeed, you might have noticed that that is the very novel the hero is reading early on in Match Point, which might be a portent of the later murder. Tolstoy will be invoked in Love and Death, Allen’s take on War and Peace, and will provide the whole structural framework and philosophical bedrock of Hannah and Her Sisters, which was partially inspired by Anna Karenina; and there will be a distinctly Chekhovian ambience to films like Interiors and September. I mention this in passing because I wanted to pick up on something Alexander Walker noted in the 1980s and which is an unusual and distinctive trait: not only what Walker called ‘the breadth of his literary references and the reach of his ambitions’, but also that they were not characteristically American: as Walker put it, ‘his spiritual and literary baggage seems to have been freighted from Northern Europe and pre-Revolutionary Russia’. And when we look at the sequence — and I want to say something about some of its stylistic features — I think we’ll see that one of the things that makes it seem different and strange is Allen’s use of music.

But let me set the scene: the story so far:

Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau) is a wealthy, highly respected eye surgeon whose reputation and livelihood are jeopardised when his mistress (Anjelica Huston) threatens to reveal their affair to his wife (Claire Bloom) and also expose details of some financial embezzlement in which he has been involved. What to do? He contacts his brother, Jack (Jerry Orbach), who has dubious underworld connections, for help: Jack’s advice is to silence this woman permanently and, for a price, he can arrange it for him. Judah is horrified, but not for long, and gives the go-ahead. As we join the sequence, Landau and his wife are entertaining family and guests for an elegant dinner, whilst Anjelica Huston is being stalked by a hired killer and followed back to her apartment: we’ll follow it through until after Judah has visited her apartment and seen the dead body, to the point when he is in his bedroom, with his wife asleep, and the phone suddenly rings.

Some miscellaneous observations:

- I’m intrigued by the detail that Anjelica Huston’s apartment is ominously next door to somewhere called ‘Jack’s’: it portends what’s going to happen.

- We cut to the warmth of Judah’s home and the polite social chit-chat which is interrupted by a phone-call from Jack to tell Judah that the deed has been done: looks like ‘a small burglary’ he says (making it sound like Watergate):

- Landau whispers rather than speaks his shocked response into the phone even though he is alone in the room: it adds to the sense of conspiracy; tellingly and unforgivably, he uses the word ‘I’ five times in this conversation. Not a word about the victim: his response is entirely to do with how things affect him.

- ‘God have mercy on us, Jack,’ he says, before going into the bathroom and washing his hands, and three things strike me there:

a) the highlighting of the religious sub-text to the sequence (not the only time God’s mentioned);

b) it’s an echo of the last line of Vertigo, ‘God have mercy’ (there is a definite Hitchcockian element to the scene);

c) washing his hands, like Pontius Pilate.

He rejoins the others: implicitly, rejoining the world he wants to preserve and for which this awful deed has been done.When he sits down, the camera stays on him, and this is very like Hitchcock: although the conversation continues (and, significantly, is about eyes, a key motif of the sequence), we’re only half-listening: the camera is focusing on Landau: we concentrate on him and his mind is elsewhere: there’s a Hitchcockian counterpoint of dialogue and image where what the scene is about verbally is not necessarily what the scene is about visually. ‘What do you think, Judah?’ his wife asks. What is he thinking at that moment? There’s a single-shot flashback of him as he lies on Huston’s lap: a mental snapshot of guilt? ‘I think . . . I’ve done a terrible thing’, he replies: momentarily you might think he is going to confess, but the camera is pulling back, as if recoiling from what it’s seeing: it’s not looking at a penitent man, but a guilty man making plans to cover his tracks and checking on the deed.

Next scene: he is returning to the scene of the crime, à la Dostoyevsky. The camera placement is interesting: it’s as if it’s waiting for him, has been expecting him; has, as it were, reserved a parking space . . . the car stops: the camera moves down the front of the car as he switches off the headlights, picking up a lot of the elements of the sequence in a single movement: eyes/lights/ darkness/descent.

He gets out of the car and I do like the way Allen films this so that there’s no drop in tension (again a bit like Hitchcock: there’s a similar bit in Vertigo when Hitchcock has to get Jimmy Stewart out of the car at a key moment without any relaxation of tension and he does it in a visually ingenious way): he just moves the camera down in front of the car and then moves it back up and Landau makes a curious movement, where, instead of crossing the road immediately, he circles the car until he is standing at precisely the point the camera was the moment when Anjelica Huston went into her apartment for the last time: it’s a camera placement that emphatically implicates him in her murder. Maybe the camera at this juncture is ‘the eyes of God that see everything’ that we hear about in the brief flashback to Judah’s upbringing as a child: at this stage, we wonder, is this ironic? Or could it be the first stirrings of conscience?

When he enters the apartment and sees the body, there is a single continuous camera movement down from him across to the dead body which again implicates him in the deed and indeed emphasises his moral descent: the open dead eyes and the camera movement might remind you a little of Psycho: here the detail of the victim’s dead eyes looking up almost in blind accusation seems a cruel reversal of the single-shot flashback we’ve seen earlier.

When he shuffles round the body and sits on the bed, the camera moves up again to reveal a particularly disturbing image — his gloves: he’s not so shocked by what he has seen that he doesn’t instantly think about the saving of his own skin and not leaving any traces. Allen’s own comment on the camera movement here was: ‘I wanted the flow going in that scene because I felt that the moment had to be . . . reflective. So everything was done legato to keep the mood from breaking. I tried to get him into a trance and keep him in that. So the camera, moving like that, doesn’t break the rhythm, doesn’t snap off the rhythm with an awakening cut. It lulls you further and further into his state of mind.’ (Woody Allen On Woody Allen, In Conversation With Stig Bjorkman, Faber and Faber, 2004, p.217).

End of the first section of the talk in three parts by Neil Sinyard.

Read part 2 here.

IFI Irish Film Archive’s Holdings Searchable Online

2011-03-14T16:35:00.000Z

Thursday March 3rd saw the official launch of the Irish Archives Resource website, which allows users to search the collections of participating archives across Ireland. The site is a central hub for information and has the appearance of a search engine, where users can enter key words, names or subjects to search across multiple archives, or use an advanced search to look for specific archives, dates and locations.

The Irish Archives Resource is funded by the Heritage Council and supported by the Archive and Records Association Ireland. All kinds of archives upload descriptions of their collections, and so far contributors include city and county archives, university archives, business archives and more. The uploaded descriptions give an overview of the content of the collections, as well as providing contextual information on who created the collections, and why.

The IFI Irish Film Archive has been contributing its collection descriptions to the IAR website since summer 2010, making a selection of its collections searchable online for the first time. Users can browse the Archive’s holdings, or search for individual donors, films or filmmakers, locations or subjects.

Currently the collection descriptions available include those from production companies, cinemas, directors and amateur filmmakers, as well as the archives of the Irish Film Institute itself. The collections include material from Hell’s Kitchen Productions (producers of My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father and In America); the Horgan Picture Theatre, a cinema open in Cork in the 1930s; amateur filmmaker and naturalist Conway Maxwell; and 1950s film producer Lord Killanin. The descriptions refer to both film and documents in the Archive, so researchers may stumble across a range of material from prop designs, scripts and posters to feature films or amateur travelogues.

As yet only a selection of the vast holdings of the IFI Irish Film Archive are represented on the IAR website, although this is being added to regularly. To find out more about the Archive’s holdings or to make an appointment to view archive material please contact archive@ifi.ie

Rebecca Grant
Document Archivist & Librarian

Mark O'Connor on 'Between the Canals'

2011-03-14T14:37:00.000Z

Director of Between the Canals, Mark O'Connor talks about the making of his film

The idea to make a film set in the North Inner City had been in my head for a few years. When I wrote the script, the characters seemed to write themselves as most of them were based on people I knew. It was difficult to convince people to take a chance with a first-time feature writer/director. I had made several short films but the Irish Film Board hadn't seen any of them. I was planning to shoot the film whether I had the money or not. Guerilla filmmaking was something I was used to because most of my short films were made for almost nothing.

I wanted the film to portray a realistic image of the North Inner City. After auditioning several people from acting schools I knew the only way to get the real thing was to cast people from the North Inner City. I felt there had been a lot of films dealing with the rough side of Dublin but there had never been a crime drama. The General was a biopic, Intermission a crime comedy caper, The Barrytown Trilogy were comedy dramas and Adam and Paul was a tragedy. We shot the film in 12 days which was a challenge with so many speaking roles and locations.

I knew Damien Dempsey would have the ability to act because he has the stage presence and charisma of a great performer. It was easy to get a emotional performance from Damien because he is a person who feels every word when he sings. He is a true artist and I think he has the ability to be a great actor.

The film is being self distibuted with support from the Irish Film Board. Self distribution takes up a lot of time but it's enjoyable because you learn a lot and you have control over how you market the film. I'm in pre-production on my next film which is set within the travelling community. I want to make good stories with interesting characters depicting Irish culture so that people can look back in 30 years and see how people behaved and the language they spoke. I love watching films from the 1920s and 30s which are based in realism as it gives you an insight into what people were like back then.

Mark O'Connor
Director
Between the Canals

Between the Canals opens on March 18th at the IFI