Irish Film at the Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival
Posted: 19th February 2019
The 2019 Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival begins on 20 February and runs until 3 March. Celebrating a host of Irish and international titles, VMDIFF 2018 will present an extraordinary red carpet line-up of on-screen talent and guest filmmakers.
See below for a complete line-up of Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland titles screening at this year's festival and to view all Irish titles screening in the programme, please click here.
Papi Chulo
Cast adrift in Los Angeles, Sean — a lonely TV weatherman — drives past a middle-aged Latino migrant worker standing outside a hardware store looking for work. He decides to hire this kind-looking man — to be his friend. Sean is young, gay and white; Ernesto, portly, straight and married. Despite having nothing in common and the language barrier, they build a sort of friendship until Sean becomes consumed with a deeper obsessive need.
Papi Chulo is a black comedy about loneliness and the desire to find connection across clear racial and socio-economic lines.
Director/Screenplay John Butler
Irish Production Company Treasure Entertainment
Screening Wed 20 Feb 2019, 6:30pm & 9pm, Cineworld
Tickets available here.
A Girl From Mogadishu
‘Silence may be the rust on the razor that threatened to cut my throat, but it wasn’t my tongue they cut.’
Born into a refugee camp in war-torn Somalia, Ifrah Ahmed was trafficked to Ireland as a teenager and turned the testimony of her traumatic childhood experiences of FGM/C into a force for good emerging as one of the world’s most foremost award-winning international activists against GBV.
Director/Screenplay Mary McGuckian
Irish Production Company Pembridge Pictures
Screening Fri 22 Feb 2019, 8:30pm, Odeon Point Village 2
Sold Out.
Diversity on Screen Panel
Following on from the world premiere of A Girl From Mogadishu there will be a panel discussion on Ethnic Diversity in Ireland today. What are the challenges and misconceptions of African- Irish experience, the issues around Black Irish representation on screen, how do we empower minority communities to tell their stories and what must the industry do to see a more diverse and inclusive voice emerge on screen?
The Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival in collaboration with Screen Ireland are delighted to have the following panel in attendance to start a vital conversation.
Please join us on Saturday, February 23rd at 1pm in the Chocolate Factory.
More information available here.
Dark Lies the Island
If you’re going to get involved with men in the town of Dromord, they might as well be Mannions — and Sara is involved with them up to her neck.
She’s married to Daddy Mannion, more than 20 years her senior, and who more or less owns the town. But her first, and maybe her true love, was his estranged son, Doggy Mannion, who is by now a criminal recluse living in the woods outside town. Then there’s the younger brother, Martin Mannion, a small-town Lothario and failing chicken farmer. Sara has just got involved with him too.
As a result of this tangled erotic web, jealousy is rife in Dromord, and it’s flinging out its spears in all directions. The Mannion men have been set at each other, their long truce cannot hold, and violence is threatened.
Director Ian Fitzgibbon
Screenplay Kevin Barry
Irish Production Company Grand Pictures
Screening Wed 27 Feb 2019, 8:30pm, Cineworld
Tickets available here.
Land Without God
Examining the legacy of institutional abuse by the Irish Church and State over the last century, Land Without God presents the accounts of those incarcerated in children’s homes and industrial institutions run by religious Catholic orders.
Why did this happen? How does one exit the trauma buried deep in the bones of generations? Is it possible to walk away free? And will they let you?
Directors Gerard Mannix Flynn, Maedhbh McMahon, Lotta Petronella
Irish Production Company Farcry Productions
Screening Thu 28 Feb 2019, 8:50pm, Light House Cinema
Sold out.
She’s Missing
Heidi and Jane are best friends living in a small town in the desert. When Jane, a Rodeo Queen contestant and military wife goes missing Heidi, now alone in the world, must begin a search across the desert for her friend. She digs up secrets and encounters the violence of life on the road, crossing paths with a series of unusual men and women in her search for an honest connection in a dishonest world.
Director/Screenplay Alexandra McGuinness
Irish Production Companies Ripple World Pictures, TW Films
Screening Fri 1 Mar 2019, 8:40pm, Cineworld
Tickets available here.
Gaza
Bringing us to a unique place beyond the reach of television and politics, Gaza presents a portrait of a group of eloquent, funny, resilient, courageous and above all ordinary people who attempt to lead meaningful lives beyond the rubble of perennial conflict.
Directors Garry Keane, Andrew McConnell
Irish Production Company Real Films
Screening Sat 2 Mar 2019, 2:00pm, Cineworld
Sold out.
Prisoners of the Moon
Featuring a combination of archive material and re-enactment, Prisoners of the Moon reveals the story of a German Nazi V-2 rocket engineer who, after World War II, was brought to the United States where he became one of the main developers of the U.S. space program.
Stripped of his American citizenship in 1983 and deported for war crimes — allegedly committed in the Nazi V2 rocket factory — Arthur Rudolph’s past was put under the spotlight in a tribunal set up in Canada after he was arrested trying to re-enter the US.
Director Johnny Gogan
Irish Production Company Bandit Films
Screening Sat 2 Mar 2019, 4:30pm, Light House Cinema
Tickets available here.
Greta
Greta is a contemporary psychological thriller from Academy Award winner Neil Jordan (The Crying Game). After discovering a handbag on a New York subway train, Frances McCullen (Chloë Grace Moretz), a young woman bereaved by her mother’s death, sets about returning it to its rightful owner. Frances subsequently strikes up an unusual friendship with enigmatic widow Greta Hideg (Isabelle Huppert), much to the dismay of her best friend Erica Penn (Maika Monroe) who is helping Frances acclimate to the city. Frances ignores her friend's concerns, but Greta's motives may be more sinister than they initially seem.
Director Neil Jordan
Screenplay Ray Wright, Neil Jordan
Irish Production Company Metropolitan Films
Screening Sat 2 Mar 2019, 8:10pm, Light House Cinema
Sold out.
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 who's reign of fear reached as far as the Italian presidency.
Director Kim Longinotto
Irish Production Company Lunar Pictures
Screening Sat 2 Mar 2019, 8:20pm, Cineworld
Tickets available here.
Screen Ireland Short Films
A series of new Screen Ireland-supported short films will also screen at this year’s VMDIFF including:
An Gadhar Dubh, Director: Pádraig Fagan, Producer: Louise Ní Chonchúir
Bending Glass, Director: Suzie Keegan, Producer: Peter Murnaghan
Psychic, Director, Brendan Gleeson, Producer: Juliette Bonass, Brendan Gleeson
Reality Baby, Director: Nodlag Houlihan, Producer: Matt Leigh
Frida Think, Director: Maya Derrington, Producer: Paul Rowley
Day Out, Director: Virginia Gilbert, Producer: Emmaline Dowling
Low Tide, Director: Ian Hunt Duffy, Producer: Simon Doyle
Mary, Director: Shaun O'Connor, Producer: Sharon Cronin
The Trap, Director: Helen Flanagan, Producer: Sarah Gunn
The Vasectomy Doctor, Director: Paul Webster, Producer: Ronan Cassidy
Fantastic Flix Programme:
The Overcoat, Director: Meelis Arulepp and Sean Mullen, Producer: Jonathan Clarke
The Bird and the Whale, Director: Carol Freeman, Producer: Jonathan Clarke