Cork Film Festival Announces Programme of its 60th Edition
The Cork Film Festival celebrates its 60th edition this year, with a strong showcase of Irish and international films announced to screen at this year’s festival. One of Europe’s longest-running film festivals, it takes place this year from November 6th to 15th. For the full lineup and to buy tickets see http://www.corkfilmfest.org/2015/
This year’s programme includes seven feature films, three feature documentaries and five short films which were funded by Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board, which are as follows:
Feature Films
Opening film: 11 Minutes – November 6th 8pm The same 11 minute period in the lives of several different characters is revisited over and over, by the great Polish iconoclast. A sleezy Hollywood director auditions an actress. A jealous husband is out of control. An elderly man calmly sketches a bridge. A high-rise window cleaner takes an illicit break. A team of paramedics rush a pregnant woman to hospital. An ex-con serves hot dogs to hungry nuns, whilst a dog does what dogs do do (but see this from the dog’s point of view). It is a world full of unsurety – perhaps the only surety is that anything might happen at any time.
Lost in the Living – November 7th 2pm OisiÌn, a musician from Dublin, travels to Berlin with his band, buzzing with the potential for adventure. He leaves behind the weight of losing his mother and an anger towards his absent father. OisiÌn meets Sabine, a pretty young Berliner, who shows him the secret places that belong to the people who live in the city; hot parks, uninhabited stations, and lakes in the countryside where the free body culture is still active. These pleasures are thrown into chaos when Sabine reveals that she has a boyfriend and the futility of OisiÌn’s situation dawns on him. His band have left, he’s lonely, homesick, homeless and broke. He embraces the darkness, tumbles through the void and out the other side.
Brand New-U – November 8th 9pm The organisation BRAND NEW-U identifies networks of Identicals – “people who walk like you, talk like you, but are walking through different, better lives” – and helps their customers make a life upgrade: eliminating the Better-Life donor, and relocating their client to that Brand New life. But errors can occur, and a Brand New life can cost more than expected. Brand New-U follows Slater as he is forced to move through a series of parallel lives. He becomes more and more obsessed as he tries to find the lover he lost, but what he must find in the end is himself. BRAND NEW-U takes elements of science-fiction movies and thrillers, strips them down, and re-mixes them into a looping dream-logic to create a contemporary allegory of our search for identity and human connection in our rootless, media-saturated worlds.
Moscow Never Sleeps – November 9th 6:45pm Moscow Never Sleeps is a multi-narrative drama about the hidden bonds that connects us all. The film dives headlong into the volatile intersections of contemporary Moscow and the intimate lives of five people: An Entreprenuer whose business empire comes under siege by powerful bureaucrats, a Teenage Girl mired in the misery of a broken home, A Young man forced to chose between his girlfriend and his grandmother; a beautiful Singer torn apart by the pursuit of two men and an ailing Film Star who gets embroiled in a bizarre kidnapping. Over the course of one day, their lives will change forever.
Shem the Penman Sings Again – November 13th 8pm Shem The Penman is an imagined archive of the actual and much fabled friendship of James Joyce and John McCormack. The world-renowned writer and the superstar tenor first met in 1904 when Joyce still had hopes of becoming a professional singer himself. They reconnected in Paris in the 1920s and Joyce was to use his first hand knowledge of McCormack to create the character of Shaun the Post in his famously ‘unreadable’ novel Finnegans Wake. As Joyce struggled with the book, he portrayed himself in it as Shaun’s lowly twin brother, Shem the Penman. Joyce’s twin obsessions, singing and literary experimentation, flow through the film as his and McCormack’s encounters are reimagined in a variety of early cinematic styles, constantly interrupted by a series of films within the film which chart the exploits of Shem and Shaun. As Joyce’s eyesight fails, the narrative is carried by a mix of archive recordings and imaginary radio broadcasts.
The Legend of Longwood – November 14th 10am Mickey Miller is a 12-year-old New Yorker whose move to Longwood, a windswept town in Ireland, coincides with the return of the legendary, evil Black Knight. Mickey and her new friend Sean – along with Silver, a wild stallion – set out to redeem the Knight. First she must save a precious herd of white horses and thwart the plans of a greedy woman – a mighty handful even for the bravest girl!
Irish Gala Screening: Strangerland – November 14th 8:45pm New to the remote Australian desert town of Nathgari, the Parker family is thrown into crisis when Catherine and Matthew discover that their two teenage kids, Tommy and Lily, have mysteriously disappeared just before a massive dust storm hits the town. With Nathgari now eerily smothered in red dust and darkness, the locals join the search led by local cop David Rae. With temperatures rising, and the chances of survival plummeting with each passing day, Catherine and Matthew find themselves pushed to the brink as they struggle to survive the uncertainty of their children’s fate.
Feature Documentaries
Older Than Ireland – November 8th 2pm Older Than Ireland features thirty men and women aged 100 years and over. Often funny and at times poignant, the film explores each centenarian’s journey, from their birth at the dawn of Irish independence to their life as a centenarian in modern day Ireland. The films observational style offers a rare insight into the personal lives of these remarkable individuals.Reflecting on such key events as the day they got their first pair of shoes, the thrill of their first kiss, from the magic of their wedding day to the tragic loss of their loved ones, these centenarians have lived through it all. Having witnessed a century of immense social, political and technological change each centenarian has a unique perspective on life and its true meaning. From the oldest Irish person ever on record, 113-year-old Kathleen Snavely to Ireland’s oldest man, 108-year-old Luke Dolan we meet a colourful cast of characters from all walks of life from the four corners of Ireland. These centenarians truly are Older Than Ireland, they are our living history and these are their extraordinary stories.
After the Dance – November 11th 3:30pm In this funny and moving documentary, acclaimed film-maker Daisy Asquith tells the very personal story of her mother’s conception after a dance in the 1940s on the remote west coast of Ireland. By exploring the repercussions of this act, Daisy and her mother embark on a fascinating and emotional adventure in social and sexual morality. Her grandmother, compelled to run away to have her baby in secret, handed the child over to ‘the nuns’. Daisy’s mum was eventually adopted by English Catholics from Stoke-on-Trent. Her grandmother returned to Ireland and told no-one. The father remained a mystery for another 60 years, until Daisy and her mum decided it was time to find out who he was. Their attempts to find the truth make raw the fear and shame that Catholicism has wrought on the Irish psyche for centuries. It leads Daisy and her mum to connect with a brand new family living an extraordinarily different life.
Life is Sacred – November 12th 4pm A story about a fearless politician and his devoted followers. With an army of young people hoping for change, he uses mimes, pencils, flashmobs and superhero costumes to attack the corruption and violence in Colombia. A young woman falls in love with the movement, but to change a society penetrated by illegality, turns out to be much more difficult than she ever anticipated.
Short Films
Blight –November 6th, 5:30pm and November 12th 12 noon A young priest is sent to battle dark supernatural forces threatening a remote Island community.
A Coat Made Dark –November 10th 9pm A man follows the orders of a dog to wear a mysterious coat with impossible pockets.
Coda – November 11th 6pm Alan Holly’s beautifully designed hand drawn animation tells the story of a lost soul who stumbles drunkenly through the city. In a park, death finds him and shows him many things.
They Shoot People - November 12th 1:45pm Jane is a neglected 12 year-old who has always been good with guns. One evening at the local carnival she gets a chance to prove it – forever altering the course of her young life.
Maidhm – November 13th 8pm An autistic boy’s world is thrown into chaos as he searches for his mother.
Filleadh an Athair – November 13th 8pm A man gets out of prison to see his adult daughter. Shame, rejection, trouble with his family — and his freedom —ensues.