A Wealth of New Irish Documentaries Set For Galway Film Fleadh
Posted: 11th July 2017
From the Irish premieres of Michael Fanning’s Rocky Ros Muc and Ross McDonnell and Tim Golden’s, Elián to the world premieres of the highly anticipated In The Name of Peace: John Hume in America by Maurice Fitzpatrick and Olga Cernovaite’s Butterfly City, the Galway Film Fleadh will present an exciting array of new Irish documentaries over the course of the festival. The Fleadh, which represents one of the most significant dates in the Irish festival calendar, will also showcase Emer Reynolds’ NASA Space Voyager doc, The Farthest, Gerry Gregg’s Condemned to Remember, Andrew Gallimore’s It Tolls For Thee and Katrina Costello’s The Silver Branch.
World Premieres
In The Name of Peace: John Hume In America
Director/Producer/Script: Maurice Fitzpatrick
Through the relationships he cultivated with The White House and US Congress, John Hume created the framework for peace in Northern Ireland. Narrated by Liam Neeson, the documentary includes wide-ranging interviews with US Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, UK Prime Ministers John Major and Tony Blair, as well as many US Senators, US Congressmen and Irish leaders.
Screening: Thurs 13th July, 16.00, Town Hall
Butterfly City
Director/Script: Olga Cernovaite
Producer: Jeremiah Cullinane, Thierry Detaille, Ulrik Gutkin
The Lithuanian city of Visaginas is only forty years old but already faces an uncertain future. The Soviet nuclear power plant it was created to service is closing down. This Russian-speaking city has no other industry. People came from all over the former USSR to work in this supposed utopia. Integration with the rest of Lithuania has proven difficult and the butterfly-shaped city now faces irrevocable change.
Screening: Fri 14th July, 12.15, Cinemobile
Condemned to Remember
Director/Producer: Gerry Gregg
In Eastern Europe, Irish Holocaust survivor Tomi Reichental, embarks on an epic journey. He confronts the ‘crisis of shame’ that prevents an honest reckoning with the scale of local ‘collusion’ with the Nazi extermination of the project. In Bosnia, Tomi embraces Muslim survivors of genocide, who still search for the bones of their loved ones.
Screening: Fri 14th July, 16:15, Townhall
The Silver Branch
Director: Katrina Costello
Producer: John Brown, Ken O’Sullivan
Set in the Burren, Co. Clare, The Silver Branch explores one man’s journey through life and his search to reconnect with nature and culture as primary sources from which we gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and our surroundings.
Irish Premieres
Rocky Ros Muc
Director: Michael Fanning
Producer: Máire Bhreathnach, Michael Fanning
Rocky Ros Muc tells the compelling story of one of Ireland’s lesser-known sons, who came from humble beginnings to become a boxing legend challenging for a world title. From the quiet Galway village of Ros Muc to the criminal underworld of Whitey Bulger and the mean streets of Boston, this doc examines not just determination and spirit inside the ring but troubles outside, exploring the reality of emigration and life on the fringes.
Screening: Wed 12th July, 18.00, Town Hall
It Tolls For Thee
Director: Andrew Gallimore
Producers: Lucia Gavin, Mike Keane
Buried in the ruins of Riveslates, in the shadow of the Pyrenees there's a story of unspeakable cruelty. Narrated by Winona Ryder, this is a story of collaboration where people willingly herded children into cattle trucks on trains heading for unknown destinations. But the ruins of Rivesaltes also tell a story of those who did not stand idly by, those who did hear the tolling of the bells. Among the rubble and the ruins of Rivesaltes, carried on the winds that threatened to tear the skin off the wretched souls imprisoned there, is the story of Irish woman Mary Elmes.
Screening: Thurs 13th July, 12.15, Cinemobile
Elián
Directors: Ross McDonnell, Tim Golden
Producer: Trevor Birney
Elián recounts the story of a Cuban boy named Elián González who, on Thanksgiving Day in 1999, was found floating on an inner tube in the Florida Straits. Set to the backdrop of a tense and acrimonious relationship between the US and Cuba, the documentary gives unprecedented access to key players in the saga and uses one boy’s remarkable journey to plot the path to rapprochement between Cuba and the US.
Screening: Sat 15th July, 14.00, Townhall
Fresh from Tribeca
The Farthest
Director: Emer Reynolds
Producers: John Murray, Clare Stronge
Depicting NASA's Voyager Mission, The Farthest celebrates magnificent machines as well as the men and women who built them and the vision that propelled them farther than anyone could have ever hoped. The doc has previously screened at the Tribeca Film Festival, the Edinburgh Film Festival and the Audi Dublin International Film Festival.
Screening: Fri 14th July, 14.00, Townhall