Get an eyeful of what’s on screen as Film Fest spreads its wings

CREATIVE thinkers, movie stars and film buffs will gather in Dingle this weekend for the 12th International Dingle Film Festival.

The festival has grown hugely from its early days when volunteers came together to assist Maurice Galway in the running of the event. Still supported by volunteers, the festival, rooted in the bilingual tradition of West Kerry, has spread its wings to take its place amongst the the top ten independent film festivals in Europe.

This year year local film-makers and subjects take pride of place with the festival bookended by big screen films of local interest. The opening film ‘Camino na Sáile’, charts the inspirational story of the crew of ‘Naomhóg na Tinte’ who successfully completed a Camino by sea from St. James’s Gate in Dublin to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, in a boat they built themselves. The final film is the world premiere of ‘Keepers of the Flame’, by Nuala O’Connor from Ventry and historian Diarmaid Ferriter. The film tells the human stories behind the Irish Military Services Pension archive. Over 85,000 applications were made for a pension following the War of Independence and just 18,000 were granted

Local interest does not stop there, a selection of work by RTE Newsman Seán Mac an tSithigh will be screened in St. James’s Church on Friday. Dingle actress Charlotte Peters will appear in front of the camera, starring in the short film ‘The Widow’s Last’, on Saturday at 3pm in St. James Church. The late Irish language scholar Mons Padraig Ó Fiannachta is the subject of a short film by Dingle film-maker Fiona Ní Ghrifín, which will be shown on Sunday at 4.15pm alongside the Dutch made ‘The Rogue’, which presents an outsiders view of Fungi the Dingle Dolphin, with boatman Jimmy Flannery among those interviewed.

Meanwhile, actors and the real world aside, an animation festival offshoot will run concurrently with the Dingle Film Festival. For this, Disney have arranged a magical off-season visit by Santa Claus to St. James’s Church, which will be bedecked in festive style. Disney has also sponsored presents for all ticket-holding children attending the screening of ‘Angela’s Christmas’ and other favourites such as ‘Give Up Yer Aul Sins’ and ‘Granny O’Grimm’. Tickets for the Saturday morning show are priced at €5 with a family ticket available for €15, which will admit two adults and two children.

With the future in mind, the festival aims to develop new talent and a measure of its success is shown by the fact that an idea for an animation series presented by one of the emerging talents identified at last year’s festival is now in the pipeline as a collaboration between a US network and Abbeydorney man John Rice’s Jam Media who provided a six month internship for the young animator.

The bilingual aspect of the festival has received recognition from the EU which has provided a copy of LUX prize-winning foreign language films with subtitles in both Irish and English, developed especially for the festival.

The Físín competition for Irish language film scripts will be held on Sunday with the winner announced on Sunday evening.

Back at the big screen, ‘Black 47’ tells the story of an Irish ranger who deserts the British Army when he hears of the fate of his family in Connemara during the famine. The film is also bilingual with Irish as the spoken language of the Connemara family and English that of the ruling classes. This film will only go on general release in September.

Tickets for the festival screenings are in good demand and bookings are up onlast year according to Maurice Galway Festival Director. Programmes for the festival and tickets are available at the Festival Office in the Phoenix Cinema or through the festival website www.dinglefilmfestival.com or by phoning 085 1774754