September highlights: Four new Irish films set to make international waves this month
Posted: 6th September 2022
Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland is proud to have supported four Irish feature films – The Ghost of Richard Harris, Pray For Our Sinners, My Sailor, My Love and Marlowe – which will receive premieres at some of the world’s most prestigious international film festivals this month.
The Venice Film Festival, which began yesterday and runs to 10th September, hosted the world premiere of Adrian Sibley’s documentary The Ghost of Richard Harris: a fascinating look at the life and legend of the iconic Irish actor. The film will premiere in the documentary strand at the Venice Film Festival this Sunday, 4th September.
Also receiving its world premiere at Venice this weekend was Martin McDonagh’s highly anticipated The Banshees of Inisherin produced by Irish production company Metropolitan Films and shot on location on the Aran Islands.
Another Irish documentary to have its world debut this month, this time at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is Sinead O’Shea’s Pray For Our Sinners, a powerful documentary about the legacy and impact of Catholicism on the residents of a small Irish town. Pray For Our Sinners will receive its world premiere on Saturday, 10th of September in Toronto.
Joining Pray For Our Sinners at TIFF is the understated drama My Sailor, My Love. Directed by Klaus Härö, the Irish, Finnish and Danish co-production was shot on location in Achill, Co. Mayo and explores love and fatherhood in late life. A retired sea captain and his daughter must reassess their strained relationship after he begins a new romance with a widowed housekeeper.
Finally, the noir thriller Marlowe has been announced as the closing film of the San Sebastian Festival, where it will receive its world premiere on September 24th. A long awaited new collaboration between director Neil Jordan and lead actor Liam Neeson, the film follows a private eye in 1930s Los Angeles tasked with finding the missing ex-lover of a beautiful heiress.
Marlowe, The Ghost of Richard Harris, Pray For Our Sinners and My Sailor, My Love join an acclaimed roster of critically and commercially successful Irish films that have debuted at major festivals in recent years and gone on to make an impact on audiences internationally and at home, including the record-breaking An Cailín Ciúin (Berlin), Academy Award-nominated Wolfwalkers (TIFF) and the BAFTA-nominated Calm With Horses (TIFF).
More recently this summer, films like Andrew Legge’s sci-fi feature LOLA premiered at Locarno Film Festival to strong reviews, with critics calling it “immensely clever” (Indiewire) and “conceptually sharp” (Screen Daily), while another acclaimed Irish documentary to continue its festival success is Kathryn Ferguson’s Sinead O’Connor documentary Nothing Compares which picked up the prize for Best Documentary at the Galway Film Fleadh.