My Brothers and Pyjama Girls Scoop Awards at Capital Irish Film Festival
Paul Fraser's directorial debut MY BROTHERS picked up the Critics Choice Award while the documentary PYJAMA GIRLS directed by Maya Derrington scooped the Best Feature Audience Award at the Captial Irish Film Festival in Washington this weekend.The festival which took place in Washington D.C. from the 2nd - 11th December screened over 30 films including a host of IFB-funded features, documentaries, animations and short films which included THE SECRET OF KELLS directed by Tomm Moore, Ken Wardrop's critically acclaimed HIS & HERS, Brendan Muldowney's SAVAGE and Carmel Winter's SNAP to name a few.
In 2005 Solas Nua, a Washington DC based arts organisation dedicated to promoting contemporary Irish arts, produced its first annual Irish Film Festival, Amharc Eile, which featured the work of over 50 female directors working in Irish cinema. Solas Nua continued with themed festivals in 2006 and 2007 before adopting the name of the Capital Irish Film Festival in 2008 so that they could embrace a larger percentage of filmmakers on a yearly basis. Although young, the Capital Irish Film Festival has now become the largest Irish film festival in the US, celebrating the best of new Irish features, documentaries, shorts and animation, including Irish language films.
This year the festival partnered with the Darklight Film Festival to showcase the unique Darklight creativity to American audiences and programming included a series of films curated by Darklight Festival Director, Nicky Gogan.