New Signatures and Reality Bites Shorts Showcase New Film and Documentary Talent at the Cork Film Festival
The latest eight Signature and Reality Bites short films are set to premiere at the Corona Cork Film Festival on November 7th.This is the second round of these two schemes to be unveiled at the festival. As the IFB's flagship short film scheme Signatures encourages the making of live-action, fiction films that aim to encourage strong, original storytelling, visual flair and production values appropriate to the big screen. This years shorts are an eclectic mix of drama, humour, love and courage.
The award-winning Eileen Walsh (Eden) and Mark Doherty (A Film With Me In It) star in John Butlers THE BALLAD OF KID KANTURK. Written by Kevin Barry this short tells of a bog-gothic love-duel between ageing singer Slim Mannion, reborn Rock'billy sensation Kid Kanturk and the seductive rock'billy vamp caught between them.
Aidan Gillen (The Wire, Wake Wood) stars in RUNNERS directed by Rob and Ronan Burke and written by Pierce Ryan. The short tells the story of 18 year old Derek who sees running drugs as just a job and not a big deal. But juggling a relationship, family and his ‘career' isn't easy and something has to give.
Meanwhile both Liam Gavin's JERICHO and Hugh O'Connor's CORDUROY tell the tale of two people on the verge of suicide and the two very different ways that bring them back from the brink.
The Reality Bites scheme encourages experimentation and the realization of a fresh approach to non-fiction filmmaking. This years selection all deal with reflections and memories of four very different topics.
BYE BYE NOW directed by Ross Whitaker and Aideen O'Sullivan looks how the phonebox has gone from the centre of Irish life to the verge of extinction through the stories of those who remember it fondly. Ross previously directed the critically acclaimed feature length documentary Saviours.
Anna Rodgers' IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK explores the closed units of Irish psychiatric institutions as they approach their demise and stories of the people who spent the best part of their lives committed in them. Anna previously directed the feature length documentary Today Is Better Than Two Tomorrows.
ALIBI directed by Darren Bolger deals with a murder and a lie that lives on as an alibi twenty years later. Meanwhile CIRCUS MAN directed by Keith Walsh and Jill Beardsworth takes a nostalgic trip through Tom Duffy's memories of life travelling the country with his family circus as he fights to stay on the road.
Signatures and Reality Bites will screen in the Opera House on Saturday 7th November at 4pm.