Dublin International Film Festival Celebrates 21 Years With Full Programme of Irish Films, Industry Events and Guests
Posted: 7th February 2023
Tuesday, 7th February 2023 - Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland is delighted to welcome the return of the Dublin International Film Festival, from this 23rd February to 4th March. The festival's full programme was launched today by Festival Director Gráinne Humphreys. We are proud to support a wide variety of Irish features, documentaries and shorts screening throughout the festival.
The festival is excited to welcome a host of onscreen talents including Emily Watson, Paul Mescal, Jane Seymour, Aidan Gillen alongside filmmakers and creatives Jim Sheridan, Artavazd Peleshyan and Robbie Ryan to mention but a few. The festival is delighted to announce that this year’s Volta awardee is Emily Watson.
Festival Director Gráinne Humphreys said:
Since the start Dublin International Film Festival has been an audience festival and a product of the environment it lives and breathes in and the community it is built on. Part of our job is to explore and reflect where that city and community is today. As our city and our film community has changed over recent years, we felt it was also important that we change as a festival. Previous iterations have had a title sponsor, and we’ve always been incredibly grateful to them for their partnerships and support which have helped the festival become what it is. But now, for the first time, we felt it was important to work with a broader community of supporters, industry partners, artists and film-makers, and to reimagine what Dublin International Film Festival could be. I am particularly delighted to premiere the superb line up of new Irish films and show these new works alongside their international counterparts. It’s a festival programme which I am extremely proud of, packed with discoveries and gems. I’m thankful as ever to all our partners and friends for their support in helping us to realise a physical festival and to my colleagues for their commitment to making this the best festival possible.”
Following the international success of 2022’s Oscar nominated opening Irish film An Cailín Ciúin, the festival are thrilled to present for this year’s opener the hugely anticipated Irish feature God’s Creatures and look forward to welcoming the luminous Emily Watson and our own hugely talented Oscar nominee Paul Mescal to Dublin for the Gala Screening.
The festival will present a robust slate of new Irish films, testament to our dynamic vigorous film industry, internationally endorsed with the ongoing awards season and recent spectacular 14 Oscar nominations. This slate will include the world premieres of Fintan Connelly’s film noir Barber, starring Aidan Gillen, and former DIFF Audience Award Winner Claire Dix’s Sunlight, starring Barry Ward and Liam Carney, both proudly supported by Screen Ireland. Screening for the first time in Ireland, Finnish director Klaus Härö will present his breath-taking English language debut, My Sailor, My Love, while Andrew Legge’s feature WW2-set sci-fi drama Lola will also screen in the country for the first time..
Always a highlight of the festival, the Irish documentary season offers an unrivalled insight into Ireland both past and present, from the political to the personal. The Festival Closing Gala is Fergus Dowd and Joe Lee’s incisive and illuminating 406 Days. Telling of the heartbreak, courage and rage of the workers involved in the 2020 Debenhams picket, Ireland’s longest running industrial dispute, this unmissable film delves into the real lives behind the headlines. Two Screen Ireland supported films will join the Irish documentary line-up: Sinead O’Shea’s exploration of the ordinary people of Navan who stood up to the Catholic Church, Pray for our Sinners and Margo Harkin’s insightful look at the Mother and Baby Home scandal, Stolen, which both explore Ireland’s relationship with the Catholic Church.
Screen Ireland/Fís Éireann is again delighted to support Irish shorts this year with a curated programme from Screen Ireland's Focus, Frameworks and Actor as Creator funding schemes. More about DIFF's 2023 Shorts Programme can be found here.
Other highlights of the programme include a series of cinematic essays on filmmaking and history, a Spanish Spotlight on the best of contemporary and classic Spanish cinema, as well as European and World Cinema strands, digital access to programme highlights, and several new initiatives, including First Frame Film Student Day, Dublin on Screen and DIFF & Beyond. Irish and international gems will be screened throughout the 10 day festival, including a great selection of screenings with Q&As. The full programme can be found here.
The Festival is proudly supported by Screen Ireland.
About Dublin International Film Festival
Over the past 21 years, Dublin International Film Festival has screened more than 1,600 international films from over 52 countries. Each year, the festival also showcases the work of Ireland’s talented producers, directors, screenwriters and actors. The Festival has hosted over 600 high profile guests, including Al Pacino, Angela Lansbury, Brendan Gleeson, Daniel Day-Lewis, Danny DeVito, Ennio Morricone, Joss Whedon, Julie Andrews, Kristin Scott Thomas, Stanley Tucci, and Stellan Skarsgård.
The Arts Council is the principal festival funder. Key partners and funders include Screen Ireland, RTÉ Supporting the Arts, 5 lamps, The Merrion Hotel, Virgin Media, MUBI, Warner Bros, Creative Europe, DCU Masters in Documentary Practice, CFA, official car partner Volvo, media partners TheJournal.ie and Sunday Times, print transport partner Wells Cargo, post-production partner Outer Limits and OOH partners Wide Eye Media and ORB.