A Host of Irish Films to Screen at Helsinki Film Festival This Week
A host of award-winning Irish features, documentaries and short films, funded by Bord Scannán na hÉireann/ the Irish Film Board are set to screen in association with the Irish Film Institute's Reel Ireland Programme at the 23rd Helsinki International Film Festival which will take place from the 16th -26th September.
Included in the jam-packed programme are Tom Moore's Oscar-nominated The Secret of Kells and Neil Jordan's Ondine. The Secret of Kells is an animation which contains action, adventure and danger for 12 year- old Brendan who must fight Vikings and a serpent god to find a crystal and complete the legendary Book of Kells and features the voice talent of Brendan Gleeson and the late Mick Lally. Ondine stars Colin Farrell, Stephen Rea and Alicja Bachleda and tells the story of Syracuse, an Irish fisherman whose life is transformed when he catches a beautiful and mysterious creature in his nets.
Also showing is Conor McPherson's supernatural The Eclipse, a highly atmospheric drama starring Ciarán Hinds as a widower who is haunted by nightmarish visions and Urszula Antoniak's Nothing Personal, an Irish- Dutch co-production starring Stephen Rea, about a young woman hitching her way to the west coast of Ireland who is offered work on an isolated farm by an older man in exchange for food.
Representing Irish documentaries at the festival will be Ken Wardrop's critically acclaimed His & Hers, which captures the voices of 70 women discussing their relationships with the men in their life. This affectionate portrayal is currently smashing box office figures in Irish cinemas and is now the most successful documentary to have screened in Ireland in the last six years. Also set to screen is Gabriel Byrne - Stories From Home, directed by Pat Collins, which is a revealing insight into the life and creative impulse of one of Ireland's foremost actors, observing Byrne in his home in Brooklyn, in his city of birth in Dublin, with some behind-the-scenes footage and intimate interviews.
A diverse selection of multi-award winning Irish short films are included in the line-up with two Oscar-nominated shorts Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty, directed by Nicky Phelan and The Door, the debut directorial from Juanita Wilson, as well as Runners, directed by Rob and Ronan Burke, If I Should Fall Behind, directed by Morgan Bushe, If These Walls Could Talk, directed by Anna Rodgers, The Herd and Farewell Packets of Ten, both directed by Ken Wardrop.
The Helsinki International Film Festival, which will screen over one hundred titles from countries all over the world in the next ten days, will run from the 16th-26th September. For more information see the official website http://www.hiff.fi/lang-en/home