Wave of Success Continues for Irish Documentary with a Strong Irish Line-up at CPH:DOX
Posted: 21st March 2019
Irish documentaries continue a very successful international festival run with three Screen Ireland funded projects features at CPH DOX this week.
CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, one of the largest and most prestigious European documentary festivals will feature Kim Longinotto’s Shooting the Mafia produced by Niamh Fagan and Seamus Murphy’s PJ Harvey: A Dog Called Money produced by Blinder Films. Also in the line-up is Keith Walsh’s When All is Ruin Once Again which is one of 16 films competing for the Next: Wave Award. This award is dedicated to films by emerging, international filmmakers.
This follows a very successful run for Irish docs with two out of the ten documentaries selected for International competition at Sundance being Irish - Shooting the Mafia and Gaza. PJ Harvey: A Dog Called Money also had its world premiere at the Berlinale last month.
CPH:DOX takes place from the from the 20 – 31st March and during the eleven days of the festival, along with the official programme of films, CPH:DOX also presents concerts, art exhibitions, five days of professional seminars, a screening market, and the international financing and co-production event CPH:FORUM, as well as the film production program CPH:LAB and much more.
About the films
Shooting the Mafia
In sharp contrast to the all-pervasive romanticised and glamorised media image of the Sicilian Mafia, Kim Longinotto's feature documentary Shooting the Mafia, unflinchingly explores the stark reality of life, and death, under the oppressive yoke of the Corleonesi Mafia. Photographer Letizia Battaglia stood up to the Mafia and it is through her lens that we enter this world of ritualised slaughter, omertà, semi-religious oppression and feudal control. The scale of the mafia’s brutality and power is revealed through a combination of rare archive footage, newsreel and personal photographs and memories.
The power of Letizia's photography and the bravery and dedication of people like her helped to finally bring to an end the brutal reign of a bunch of small town thugs whose reign of fear reached as far as the Italian presidency. Produced by Niamh Fagan for Lunar Pictures the film picked up third prize in the Panorama Audience Awards at this year’s Berlinale.
PJ Harvey: A Dog Called Money
As imaginative as the creative process it documents, A Dog Called Money is a uniquely intimate journey through the inspiration, writing and recording of a PJ Harvey record. The film is directed by Seamus Murphy and produced by Katie Holly for Blinder Films.
When All is Ruin Once Again
A rural community commit their lives to memory as a new motorway ploughs forth through their landscape, a glaring symbol of our modern age. What will remain when nature inevitably subsumes it all. Directed by Keith Walsh and produced by Jill Beardsworth for Twopair Films, the documentary won the Best Cinematography Award following its premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh in 2018.