BROTHERS WITH VISION
GLOBE-trotting film makers and brothers Dave and Karl McGlone have a vision of Wexford as the Cannes or Sundance of Ireland.
They are the duo behind Wexford Film Festival which held its second annual weekend event in Wexford Arts Centre.
Thirty new, independent films from all over Ireland and from Canada, America, Holland, the UK, Greece and Russia, including shorts, feature length films, documentaries and animation movies, were shown to an enthusiastic audience over three evenings.
There was a big international response to the festival this year with 37 different countries and every genre on the submission list and the final selection being praised by film fans for its diversity.
The main selection criterion is a film’s ability to tell a good story, according to Dave. ‘We’re all about story and visual story-telling. There are thousands of ways to tell a good story. We’re filmmakers who work all over the world. The idea of the festival is to bring some of what we see back to Wexford.’
Earlier this year, Dave worked on a documentary film shoot in Asia while in recent years, the pair have produced their own small-budget independent films in New York and Los Angeles.
The audience provided very positive feedback on the content and atmosphere of the 2017 festival. ‘We got excellent feedback. They praised the selection and the chilled-out vibe and relaxed atmosphere,’ said Dave.
‘We had documentaries, comedies, thrillers, dramas and brilliant animation. The festival this year was also fortunate to have a lot of filmmakers and actors attending to talk about their films and give the audience a behindthe-scenes look at what went into the making of these films.’
The highlights included ‘Fanatic Heart’ about Wexford native Larry Kirwan’s New York band Black 47 and ‘Twice Shy’ starring Ardal O’Hanlon and Pat Shortt.
Dave who has had some of his own films shown at festivals around the world, said the aim is to grow the Wexford event internationally.
‘We’re looking to grow it into a world-class film festival. There is no reason why it can’t become a big international event - a film festival run by filmmakers for filmmakers and move fans in one of the most beautiful parts of Ireland where Saving Private Ryan and Brooklyn were filmed. Cannes is a small town, similar in size to Wexford and Sundance is also a small place.’ ‘We know it will take a while,. It was great this year to see the festival grown in participation and audience numbers. Next year, we hope to grow it even further and bring some more great films from around Ireland and the rest of the world,’ he said.
The 2017 results are as follows: Best Film, Cat Killer, a dark comedy about a dying cat and a desperate man, written and directed by Wes Jones; Best Short Film, The Box, written and directed by Adam Collins; Best Director, Cara Holmes for The Boring Diary of Frances Noone; Best Actress, Iseult Casey in Twice Shy; Best Actor, Jarlath Tivnan in Oh Brother, a short film about Asperger’s by Mia Mullarkey; Best Screenplay, Sons & Broken Noses by Damien Aulsberry.