Irish Shorts on a Roll as Four Films Selected for Top International Short Film Festival
Four very different and diverse Irish short films Moore Street Masala, A Film From My Parish - 6 Farms, The Polish Language and Please Say Something have been selected for the prestigious Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival in France later this month.
David O'Sullivan's colourful Bollywood musical MOORE STREET MASALA has been selected for the international competition and will be competing against 75 other films. The light hearted short was filmed in Dublin and had members of the public taking part in the Bollywood dance finale. It picked up the Audience Award for Best International Short Film at the Corona Cork Film Festival last year.
A FILM FROM MY PARISH - 6 FARMS directed by Tony Donoghue and THE POLISH LANGUAGE directed by Alice Lyons and Orla McHardy and PLEASE SAY SOMETHING directed by David O'Reilly have all been selected for the Lab competition.
The short documentary 6 FARMS had an extremely successful 2009 screening at the renowned Sundance Film Festival and other international festivals. It received two Honorable Mentions at the Cork Film Festival in the Best Irish Short Film and Best International Short Film categories for its imaginative and emphatic look at a rapidly disappearing rural world. The film also picked up the Best Documentary Short award at the Kerry Film Festival.
THE POLISH LANGUAGE, a creative animation written by Alice Lyons is a film-poem about the subversive power of art and the renewal of poetry in the whispery language of Polish. It picked up the Best Irish Animation award at the Galway Film Fleadh last year.
PLEASE SAY SOMETHING the experimental short concerning a troubled relationship between a cat and mouse set in the distant future won the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at the Berlinale Film Festival last year and is set for theatrical release in Germany this year.
The Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival is one of the most important short film festivals in the world and is extremely hard to get into with over 5,500 applications this year alone. All four shorts received funding from the Irish Film Board.
This selection is just the latest success for Irish shorts which have had a phenomenal few months with Juanita Wilson's THE DOOR and Nicky Phelan's GRANNY O'GRIMMS SLEEPING BEAUTY both shortlisted for Oscar nominations while OLD FANGS directed by Adrien Merigeau and PLEASE SAY SOMETHING both being selected for the Sundance Film Festival. MOORE STREET MASALA is currently in competition at the Australian short film festival Flickerfest along with John Kennedy's HOOR and Rory Bresnihan's THE MAN INSIDE.
The Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival will take place 29th January - 6th February 2010.